Crossing
by Mirrordance
Summary: 3 possible hunts that finally pushed Sam to leave for Stanford: The lines blur between good and evil on 1 a job forcing John to choose between his sons; 2 a mission to kill another hunter; and 3 a job that requires Sam to kill a child to save Dean.
1. Chapter 1

Author:Mirrordance

Title: **Crossing**

Summary:Three versions of the last hunt that finally pushed Sam to leave for Stanford. The lines blur between good and evil on (1)a job that forces John to choose between his sons; (2)a mission to kill another hunter; and (3)a job that requires Sam to kill a child to save his brother.

**Hi guys!**

First off, lots of love and thanks to all who read, favorited and *especially* all who reviewed my last fic, _Consent_. I owe quite a bit of people some responses, but RL has just been driving me crazy, and once in awhile I get these compulsions to post a story that I have to get rid of just so I can get to the host of other things I need to do (I work and go to grad school at the same time - I am enriching my mind even as I lose it, haha). Will get to those very soon, as well as my pending projects. I just felt I wanted to post this, because it is one story with three stories inside, and the one below is a completed one shot :)

Anyway, as always, c&c's are welcome; I'm slow to reply but I read them and feed on them and draw inspiration from them, so lots of love to those who do review, but I do thank everyone for taking the time to read my works anyway :) Hope you enjoy and let it relieve you of your own RL stresses, haha, writing it certainly takes a the edge off of mine :) Okay. Without further ado:

" " "

**1: Departures**

_The lines blur between good and evil on a job _

_that forces John to choose between his sons_

Late Spring 2001

" " "

_Not that any of them would ever admit it, but they all teared up a little bit, at Sam's graduation. Dean was unabashedly beaming proud, and John looked stuffed but suffused beside him. The two men were wearing noting out of the ordinary Winchester fare, but Dean felt a little bit _overdressed_ when Sam finally joined them at the end of the ceremonies, with people looking at them and Sam standing there with his family and all his awards._

_John reverted to his defensive mode, which made him gruff and taciturn. Dean's version was a loud and lewd. Sam was jumpy; proud of himself but uncertain if his father wanted to be somewhere else, if his brother got bored, if any of them thought it was cheesy. But all their eyes shone -_ tellingly- _in the bright sunlight of midday. They glistened, looked like jewels, and their gazes glinted against each other's. It was warm for spring, and the grasses and the trees were at the very height of their verdant green._

"We've talked about this."

It was the tone, really, that finally dragged him to the present.

There was an odd timbre to his father's voice that came out only in the direst situations; it was part defiant growl, part low-voiced denial, part-taut-tense agitation, part mounting panic, part misplaced determination. It was such a rich, deep tone, Dean thought,_ nuanced, layered, conflicted_.

He first heard it at age four – a bundle stuffed into his arms and a command he'd hear and heed forever. He'd heard it again shortly after that – _mom's not coming out of there, Dean-o_- and then sporadically since, for one reason or other. It sounded like a man at the end of his rope, but hanging on _damn_ tight.

That tone always had a hold on him; it snapped him to attention, reined him in, brought him into certain perspectives, certain realities. Like the fact that the verdant greens of Sam's graduation day has come and gone, only to be replaced by cold stone, gray clouds and frigid air that hummed with the mounting energy of a storm, eager to unleash all that built-up tension.

"Yeah and we'll talk about it again," snapped another voice, one that Dean had to think about to recall. _Buck_, he remembered, and images of the scraggly-thin man came to mind. Buck was a seasoned hunter who dragged the Winchesters on one of those rare paying gigs: a long history of deaths on a treacherous mountain used to be attributed to seasonal storms, up until Buck called up John and said it's a helluva bigger mess about some sort of vindictive ghost. The climbing season was coming by and maybe someone ought to do something about it all, finally, before someone else died. The search for the body was a lengthy mess but between Buck, John, Dean and Sam, they got the job done.

Winchesters being Winchesters, however... they get paid in cash or kind for a job and somehow life just gets back at them in some other way.

_It's why dad sounds like that_, Dean thought. It was why he was flat on his back on hard ground not at all softened by the sleeping bag he was lying on, why he was smothered in what he imagined were all the blankets in their cave-camp, why he had such a hard time opening his eyes, why he couldn't remember having fallen asleep, why he felt so numbed by cold that he felt nothing, not even pain...

_Pain_...

He gasped in remembrance. There had been much of that, what, hours ago? Dean didn't know where it went, but that was not to say he felt better. He felt... he felt a little bit lost, detached, drifting. He drifted like the winds that were swirling at the mouth of the cave they used as temporary shelter. The breeze kicked at snow, like a bull pissing itself off before charging.

"Shut up," John growled at Buck, "He's awake, so shut your goddamn mouth."

Dean felt his father shuffle to his side.

"Dean you in there?" John asked, "Open your eyes for me."

He tried to comply. When he couldn't, he tried to speak. What came out was an alien gurgle that he decided to disown.

"You're all right," John told him quietly. Dean knew that tone too. It sounded like a lie, like how John sometimes says _I'll be back in a few hours_. He hated that tone in many ways. He hated it because he liked having his old man around and the tone meant he wasn't going to be. He hated it because he always had to pretend he believed it, for all their sakes. He hated it because Sam hated it, and he was always the one who had to put a salve on that particular wound.

_Sam_...

"John, he has a right to know--" Buck started.

_Sam_?!

"No," John barked.

Dean's heart sped up. His chest rose and fell, laboriously. Nothing hurt, _nothing_, and he almost missed the pain, missed how it made him feel more alive. He had to be alive... he had to be alive because he had to move, and he had to move because dad was using that damn tone again and Dean suddenly realized that his shaggy-haired stupid little-big brother was nowhere to be seen.

"Sam," he grunted out, and because the raspy voice that came out was unfamiliar, he thought maybe he hasn't spoken yet and so he said it again, "Sam."

"Your brother's just outside," John said, "Trying to get that damn radio working."

Dean finally managed to pry his eyes open. The words sounded true, and _damned_ if he couldn't tell every time his father lied or not. But this was about Sam now, and he needed his eyes to look at his father too, needed to see if John's look matched his truthful tone.

John's gaze on him was over-warm in a way that Dean hadn't seen since... since... _god, it was Sam's graduation again, and the three men went to a Mexican grill and stuffed themselves silly. John's phone rang in the middle of the meal and for a moment there Dean thought that it signaled the end of the unspoken celebration. He had instinctively double-timed on shoveling food in his mouth, and then stared at his father, just waiting on the order to move out. But John just glanced at his mobile and discreetly ignored the call. Dean's jaw dropped, and John told him to chew with his mouth shut. His father's eyes were lit up from inside, almost knowingly, and it was the best damn burito Dean had ever had, even if Sam's gaseous tendencies made the car ride--_

_Sam!_

"He's all right, Dean," John told him soothingly, "You just take it easy."

"He won't be for long," Buck snapped and Dean watched, horrified, as his father rose from his side and grabbed the other hunter by the collar of his shirt. John enraged was a sight to be seen, and Buck's feet rose from the ground.

"You shut your mouth!" John commanded, as Buck kicked futilely at air.

"He's got a right to know!" Buck argued, "And me, Sam, hell even _you_, John, we deserve to live!"

John shook Buck angrily as he spoke, and when it looked like he was about to deck the bastard, Dean called out to his father.

"Dad, stop."

It was just a whisper, but John heard it as surely as he knew Dean had been awake even just by the change in his breathing from minutes ago. Buck was tossed on his ass a few steps away, and John was back beside Dean in a heartbeat.

"You're all right," John said again, and his voice shook at the end, there. His eyes watered, and he blinked at them, "Sam's all right, everyone's all right."

Dean looked at him searchingly, grabbed at his arm, "Right... to know what?"

"I'm gonna say it 'cos you can't," Buck said from across the room.

"Shut up!" John yelled at him, and made another move to rise except Dean's fingers kept him right where he was. The fingers wound around his arm in a deathgrip, and John remained kneeling by his son's side as Buck wisely kept away from them as he spoke.

"I'd appreciate you doing this for me if things were the other way around, kid," Buck said, "You know that, don't you Dean?"

"Buck..." John said, his tone suddenly different, almost..._begging?_, "Please. Please. Man to man, father to a father, Buck, I'm asking you: don't do this."

There was a long potent silence, and Dean wondered if it was just him, going away again. But it was Buck hesitating, as disarmed by John's tone as Dean himself was.

"I'm sorry John," Buck said, "Father to father... I got a kid I gotta come back to. I ain't dyin' here. I'm all he's got." He took a deep breath and said, "There's a storm coming up on this mountain, Dean. A big one, a killer for sure. We gotta get down from here man, and _pronto_. But no one's gettin' out in time if we have to carry you along with us."

Dean turned his eyes to his father's anguished ones, "Dad...?"

"_Jesuschrist_, Buck..."

"He deserves to know," Buck argued, "He's a grown man, Johnny. He deserves to know. I'm telling you now, Dean, and I'm sorry as I'll ever be about anything by saying this, but I don't think you're getting off of this mountain alive."

John's arm jerked in Dean's hold, and it really could have been a punch that would have taken Buck down except Dean was not going to let him go.

"Your daddy saw that injury same as me," Buck continued, "It's bad kid, I think even you know that. Now see, this storm's coming up soon, and we can't trek out of here in time to beat it if we bring you with us – 'sides... I don't think you're liable to make the trip down anyway. What I'm sayin' is... we bring you with us and we all die. We stay with you here and we all die."

"I'm not leaving him here," John growled at Buck.

"Dad..." Dean's eyes were wide as saucers, pregnant with all the horrid thoughts of his family dying because of him, "Dad--"

"No," John snapped at Dean, "You listen, Dean. _No_. No. I am not leaving you here."

"Please," Dean whispered, "Please... Sam..."

"Buck," John said, "You take Sam out of here, you get me? You take him, and I'll stay with Dean--"

"As long as Dean's breathin', Sam ain't getting off this mountain," Buck snapped, "If I knock him over the head and drag him out with me, neither of us are gonna make it. And you'll die if you stay here, John, you know it as well as I do. You got no supplies for a storm like this."

"I'll talk to Sam--"

There was that delusion part talking again, and Dean wished he could snort at his father. It was Buck who called him out on it.

"You got another son I don't know about?" Buck argued, "You know it same as me: as long as Dean's breathin, that kid ain't getting off this mountain. Lose one son or lose both, John, 's all I'm saying."

Dean's heart thundered in his ears. The answer was all at once simple but also impossibly hard.

"Dean," Buck called out to him quietly, and they were both probably thinking the same thing, "It kills me to say this, you know I'm a daddy too. But I'm gonna 'cos your father doesn't have the balls to say it and nor should he. The drugs you're on... I got one more here with me. I stick this in you and--"

"Shut up, Buck!" this time, John jerked free of Dean's hold and really did take a swing at the other hunter.

But Dean already knew what Buck meant. One more shot, and he'd overdose. One more shot and all the pain will go away forever. One more shot and then his dad and brother wouldn't have to die on a mountain with him. It wasn't such a bad way to go, was it? Painless, surrounded by the people he loved, even as he saved their lives. It wasn't such a bad way to go...

"Dad," Dean called out, but John was busy taking his frustration out on Buck, who pawed at him weakly. With a grunt, Dean twisted, tried to pull himself up to sit. And _oh god_ how fragile and precious had that moment of pain-absence meant, because it sure reared up it's ugly, angry head now. Did he dare think he ever missed it? Was he so foolish?

He cried out in pain, coughed weakly into his hand. There was blood on his palm then, dark bold red of it, like that toga of Sam's, except Sam's was a bit shinier _and the gleaming fabric had these lines that danced in the sun. He looked stupid and brilliant all at the same time... He looked both sad and happy. He took the podium for his valedictorian speech, looking insanely proud but also unbearably embarrassed. He was Dean's baby brother, but he looked so darn big up there._

John heard his cry and slammed Buck to the ground and ran to his son, pushing at him to lie back down. But Dean was tired of the ground and so he fought his father's grip. They ended up wrapped around each other, John sitting and bearing Dean's slumped weight. Dean wanted to sit up as much as he was able, wanted to meet his father's eyes squarely, wanted to show his father that he was fully in possession of himself, fully able to make choices that were this important.

_Sam had a sheet of paper in his hand, but he never even looked at it._

_"I am a professional 'new kid,'" he began, and those dimples of his winked, even from a distance. Dean thought that Sam looked a little bit shy and unquestionably earnest, and for the first time since he was old enough at age 6 to decide that it was un-cool to think so, he actually found himself conceding that his little brother was just so darn cute sometimes._

_"So standing here in front of you," Sam went on, "It's not just an honor, it's... I want to say miracle, I want to say blessing, I want to say luck, but I'm thinking maybe it all comes down to statistical anomaly. I am a freak. Every high school has at least one freak. Maybe two. Maybe two dozen. But that's just one story, and everyone here has a hell of one to tell. Four years... if these walls could talk."_

_He inhaled and gathered his breath, and the sound was a quick swish on the microphone, it sounded sharp and so alive._

"It's my choice," Dean gasped out as he pulled away from his father, so that John was looking right at his face and his burning eyes, "My choice."

"No!" John barked out, and it sounded almost petulant and child-like, which was something new. Dean's never heard this one before. "No, Dean, _no_. You're not going like this, I won't let you. You don't get to do this for us, you don't get to."

_Sam continued on, speaking both seriously and humorously of the more infamous events of his high school years. He dropped names of students and teachers, had the crowd alternately roaring and wistful, and they were like some orchestra that heeded his every command. Rise and fall, loud and quiet, pitch-perfect, everyone playing along to the graceful movements of his masterful hand. Dean always knew Sam was a talker, but this was just _smooth_. He was a captivating manipulator of the highest order, just catching everyone's attention and holding on tight._

Dean stared at his father, desperate to be looked at. He looked at him long and hard and also nakedly for the first time in a long time. He was undisguised, unmasked, and he hoped his eyes and his face yelled out what he felt for his family. He'd die for his father or Sammy in a heartbeat; he would never be the death of them. But if his father could never accept that, then he was free to think whatever he wanted, as long as he was alive.

"Then for Sammy," Dean whispered, "Okay? For Sammy."

Water leaked from the corners of John's eyes, "You don't get to do this..."

"I want to," Dean begged, his breath hitching, "You gotta... you gotta get outta here, dad. Take... take care o' Sam, okay? M-more than... than... th-the thing that k-k-killed m-mom, you j-just g-gotta..."

"No, Dean--"

_"...I could go on all day," Sam continued wistfully, "Everyone I've known, all the things I've seen here. I'm a professional 'new kid,' I told you, and I like to think it means there are things I pay attention to that others don't notice, because it's normal to them. For instance I still know the name of the very first person who was gracious enough to talk to me here and what she said to me. I'm still crushing on her a little bit and I can guarantee you that she won't remember, and that I won't tell. It's just one more story for these walls, from just one more guy who happened to pass through. 'Cos you know... we're really all just passing through. None of these is ours – not the walls, not the youth, not the time. The moment we walked in here we were already walking away from here and today, we're just closing the door behind us."_

"If we're doing this we have to do this before Sam gets back," Buck said quietly, coming up behind John, the syringe in his hand, "If we're gonna do this, we gotta do it now."

"My choice dad," Dean insisted, reaching for the syringe, "For Sammy, right?"

Buck handed the syringe to Dean, but John closed his own digits around theirs to halt the exchange, still hesitating, still unsure.

"It's okay, dad," Dean said softly, "It's okay."

_"It's so easy to think that there is no point to all of this," Sam went on, "I'll never use the equation for combustion again, I'll always be bad at carpentry and cooking, and why the hell am I studying impossible triangles? Why do I have to deal with people I'll never see again? Why do teachers and administrators get to judge me? Don't these bullies know their time's almost up? Don't the beautiful people know they're going to get older? When will nerds ever get a life? You're in high school and you keep waiting for it to be over, like you're just as eager to fast forward and see what you'll be in the end, when the doors close and you're outside. Who are you, and where will you be? But the point is that the answer to that is a big hunk of nothing without everything we've been through together. Unquestionably we've damaged each other, scarred each other. But we've also built each other. Almost always, the kind of a person comes out in the end - if you graduated from the right place surrounded by the right people - is someone better than whoever came in."_

John let go of their hands, and he looked at Dean hungrily, like there was so much to say that words had run out, become irrelevant and inadequate. Buck politely left the Winchesters alone, walked toward the mouth of the cave. Dean gripped the syringe tightly, and his miserably shaking hands tried to uncap it. He didn't ask for his father's help; he knew that being a witness to this was hard enough for John, and that being a party to his son's suicide would just about break him.

_"This was the right kind of place," Sam said, "And the right kind of people. I came in as a freak new kid and came out in a shiny toga and a few minutes to myself up on this stage. The world feels so large, suddenly, and looking around... I know I'm not the only who feels like this. The world is about possibility. The rest of life awaits, maybe... maybe _real _life itself awaits. And this... _this _is truly ours now. Ours to make great, ours to fail. Our rewards to reap, our consequences to pay. Ours."_

Dean took a deep breath when the cap came off the needle. It dropped on the fabric of the blankets and their clothes, lost in the sea of cloth between his father and himself. A shot to the heart would be quick, wouldn't it? Right over the heart...

"This damn radio--" he suddenly heard from the cave entrance, and it sounded like the voice in his waking dreams.

"Sam, why don't you..." Buck began, but Sam had gone into the cave closely enough to see that there was something going on.

"Dean!" he exclaimed, and he bounded forward. He had a small smile on his face, as if the sun shone just because his brother was now awake. Dean put the syringe down on his side, away from Sam's line of sight.

"Sam," Dean greeted him quietly, with a small smile.

"Hey, man," Sam said, and he lowered himself to the floor at a crouch. His forehead scrunched in worry, "Should he be sitting up like this, dad?"

John swallowed thickly, unable to find his voice.

"Dad--"

"You were sayin' something about the radio?" John snapped at him, snapped back to himself.

"Yeah just that I still can't get it to work," Sam said, "But I'll try again in a few minutes, all right? I just wanted to check in on Dean. Dude, I am _glad_ to see you awake."

Dean's eyes watered, and he blinked at them defiantly, at the idea that Sam would leave again soon, that this would be their last conversation, and that he'd come back to a corpse, "Yeah?"

"I know, I know," Sam smiled, "Chick, right?"

"Always," Dean grinned.

"Anyway I'm back to work," Sam said as he rose up. He patted the blanket by Dean's booted feet, "One air rescue coming right up. I'll get the radio to work, Dean, I swear it. You just gotta hang on."

Dean closed his eyes, and the tears he's been keeping in leaked out, leaked with his regrets and his unspoken apologies and his unfortunate last words. Sam caught the _damned _crying, and he lowered himself down on the ground again, reached for Dean's shoulder.

"Dean..." he hesitated, "Hey man, come on--"

"Don't, Sam," Dean growled, turning his face away from his brother's, "Lemme alone."

He meant in more ways than one, but Sam was kinda dense like that.

"Dean..." Sam breathed, but when he shifted to lean in closer, his left hand landed on the slim, plastic cap of the syringe. He ignore it for a microsecond, until something clicked, and his eyes shot to Dean's watery, regretful gaze.

Sam stared at him in disbelief, and then he looked around and found the syringe in Dean's hand. Sam mercilessly snatched it away, and he looked at his brother in accusation.

"Sam..." Dean began, but Sam's eyes were murderous, just rage-blind.

"I hate you right now," Sam said darkly, voice low and dangerous.

"You wouldn't..." Dean struggled to joke, "Wouldn't want that to be the last thing you said to me, would you?"

Sam's eyes could have popped out of his head. "I told you I'd get it done and I will, Dean. Hold on. You gotta hold on."

"There's no time," Dean argued, "No time, Sam... you gotta get out of here, you all have to. Please just gimme it. It'll be fast, and things will stop hurting. It'll save me, man, it'll save all of us."

"No," Sam said vehemently, "_No_."

"Then leave me," Dean begged, "Take that with you, I don't care, as long as you leave. I'll hold on as long as I could, Sam, I swear, I'll wait for you to come back and bring somebody. But please leave."

"I can't do that," Sam shook his head.

"It's too late for me," Dean insisted, coughing again and there was that damned blood again, reminding them all that they were running out of time in so many ways, as if they could forget it, "I want you to live, Sam. You staying here? It'll kill me, I swear to god it will--"

Sam's eyes watered, but there was never any consideration in them, of Dean's suggestion. Not a smudge, not a mite, none at all. He turned his angry gaze his father's way, "You were gonna let him."

"He wouldn't've," Dean gasped, "He wouldn'tve had t-to if... if any of y-you y-yahoos j-just got out of here, all right? P-p-please, Sammy... You g-g-gotta g-get out--"

"No, you stupid jerk," Sam said, "No, all right?" he turned to his father angrily, "How could you even consider this? How could you lend yourself to this? What kind of a father-- Mom would--"

"Don't you bring her into this!" John yelled, aggravated by his own guilt and the ghost of Mary always lingering in his mind, glancing at him from behind the eyes she shared with Dean's, "Don't you dare; you never knew her, you never--"

"What mother can live with this, huh, dad?" Sam asked, "Look at this... look at what hunting's made you, dad. You were gonna sit here and watch your son kill himself."

"If he didn't," Buck exclaimed from the sidelines, "We all die--"

"Stay out of it!" John and Sam snapped at him simultaneously. Any other day and it would have been funny.

"I can't believe it, dad," Sam said quietly, "You were gonna let him do it. You were really gonna let him do it."

"It was m-my choice," Dean argued, "S-still isss..."

"No," Sam said, "Not this one, Dean. This is all on me."

"Shut up, S-Sam!" Dean growled, "You d-don't g-get t-to die here 'c'cos of me."

"And you don't get to die here 'cos of me!" Sam argued.

"Dad help me," Dean pleaded, "Grab it, I g-gotta--"

"No," Sam seethed, "Put a damn lid on this right now, dad. End it for crying out loud, it never even should have gotten this far!"

John looked from one son to the other.

"I can make the radio work," Sam said in a bold voice, "I can get us help. Please, dad. _Please_. Let me do this. I can do this."

"Get outta here," Dean countered, "Get him outta here."

"I can't," John looked at Sam apologetically, "I can't lose you both, Sammy."

Sam closed his eyes, ran a shaky hand over his face. One hand still held the syringe he had confiscated from Dean and he was apparently _never_ going to let it go.

"He got hurt because of me, did you know?" Sam said spitefully, "Hell, of course you do, 'cos it's always been that way. _You _drilled it into him from day one. He always gets hurt because of me. And now he's supposed to just die _for_ me too, is that it? You gotta... you gotta trust me, sometimes dad. I can take care of myself. And I can take care of Dean too. Shit, dad... sometimes I wonder if things would be better if I was just... if I just..."

"Sam?" Dean asked him gently, coaxing him to continue.

"Nothing," Sam finished, before he rose to his feet and grabbed the radio. He didn't let go of the syringe. Dean guessed no one could take that from him, someone would have to pry it from cold, dead hands, by the steely way Sam was looking at them all, daring them to defy him.

He looked so scared and he somehow also looked so brave, his _big-little brother..._

"We're gonna try this again," Sam said, "You – you're not going anywhere, Dean, you understand me? I promised you, and I'm gonna get you help. And you--" he turned to his father, "He dies on your watch and I'll never forgive you."

With that, he walked away, shoulders squared and proud and sure.

"Dad, get him," Dean whispered to his father, even as he clung to him, "Dad, stop him. Dad, get him. Dad, stop him. Dad, get him..." it petered off to a murmured mantra, as the world faded away.

" " "

"We've talked about this."

It was the tone, really, that finally dragged him to the present.

There was an odd timbre to his father's voice that came out only in the direst situations; it was part defiant growl, part low-voiced denial, part-taut-tense agitation, part mounting panic, part misplaced determination. It was such a rich, deep tone, Dean thought,_ nuanced, layered, conflicted_.

He first heard it at age four – a bundle stuffed into his arms and a command he'd hear and heed forever. He'd heard it again shortly after that – _mom's not coming out of there, Dean-o_- and then sporadically since, for one reason or other. It sounded like a man at the end of his rope, but hanging on _damn_ tight.

That tone always had a hold on him; it snapped him to attention, reined him in, brought him into certain perspectives, certain realities. Like the fact that the cold hard ground of the cave and the whipping storm winds of the cold mountains and his pains and hurts have come and gone, only to be replaced by a soft bed against his back, the muted sounds of machines hooked to his body whirring and beeping, the fading murmur of conversations drifting out the door of his, he figured, hospital room.

"Yeah and we'll talk about it again." _Sam_, Dean realized, and it was a tone that sounded so much like his father's that he wondered if John had gotten wet and greminlined up another version of himself.

"This job..." Sam said, "It's gonna kill us one day, dad. All of us. You understand that? You understand what that means? Do you even _know _it?"

"You're not—"

"Dying on your watch?" Sam scoffed, and the mockery was just dripping off of his loaded words, "_Really_."

"Sam..." John's voice was strained, like he wanted to get mad but just could not find the energy to dredge it from, "If there's anything worth dyin' for--"

"Yeah, yeah I know," Sam snapped, "I got the sales pitch, dad, I got it a decade ago. I get why we do it, I get it, _I do_. But how come we get to die, when we haven't even lived yet? We haven't lived yet. All this... this isn't a life. Or it is, whatever. It's not _mine_. The mistakes, the decisions, everything that led us here... I feel like I'm paying for someone else."

"Keep quiet, Sam," John commanded, "Dean's awake."

"I know," Sam said quietly, "I want him to hear. He's got a right to know."

"Right," Dean echoed, as his eyes fluttered open, "Right to know what?"

"I'm going away," Sam said.

"No he's not," John growled.

"Yes I--" Sam cut himself off, sighed. "This isn't the time or the place."

Dean blinked at his brother, licked at his dry lips, "Va... vacation?"

Sam laugh-sobbed, ran a weary hand over his face, "Yeah. Yeah, Dean. You can say that."

_The End_

_October 8, 2009_

* * *

Coming Up: **Dead Man Walking. **_The lines blur between good and evil __on a mission to kill another hunter_

Thanks for reading and 'til the next post!


	2. Dead Man Walking

Author: Mirrordance

Title: **Crossing**

Summary: 3 versions of the final hunt that could have pushed Sam to leave for Stanford... The lines blur between good and evil on (1)a job that forces John to choose between his sons; (2)a mission to kill another hunter; and (3)a job that requires Sam to kill a child to save his brother.

**hi gang!**

Thanks to all who read, alerted, favorited and especially all who reviewed the first intsllment of _Crossing_ I know I owe a lot of responses, but RL has been taxing lately in all possible avenues and like a whole bunch of people, I caught the flu bug that's going around on top of work and classes :( Nevertheless, it has been awhile since I updated this story, and I figured to show my thanks, here's another installment and I hope you enjoy it.

The last installment of _Crossing_ will be much longer, and I'm debating whether or not I should just chop it into parts, haha, but I am a fan of symmetry so it might just be a long one-shot. Anyway, C&Cs always welcome if you can spare 'em... I know so few of us have a lot of time, but your thoughts are always inspiring and enlightening :) Without further ado, _Dead Man Walking_:

" " "

**2: Dead Man Walking**

_The lines blur between good and evil _

_on a mission to kill another hunter_

Late Spring 2001

" " "

He always felt he was a little bit on the outside, looking in.

When he was younger, it was the backseat of the Impala, watching his father and his older brother up front. He got a little bit older and it was his dad and his teenage brother and their hushed conversations quieting, the moment he got even just a little bit into earshot. Older than that, and it was dad and his Dean talking about a hunt, or recovering from one. Even after he found out about their lives and got immersed in the hunt himself, there was an externality to it that he could not shake off; he did not have his father's single-mindedness, and he did not share Dean's passion.

Today, therefore, could have been just like any other day.

He stood stock still inside the closet, and he felt merged with the dark. A sliver of light came from a disjointed slat from which he, _once again_, looked from the outside-in.

"Where's your brother, Dean?" the hunter asked his brother. The two men sat across from each other in the living room.

"Out," Dean lied, "He just finished high school a couple of days ago, you know. He's going crazy with some friends of his."

"Yeah?" the other hunter asked. Sam knew his name, of course. The other hunter was Mike Florini - _Uncle Mike for crying out loud- _but people lost their endearments the moment he wanted any one of the Winchesters dead and at the moment, it seemed like he had his sights set on Sam.

"Yup," Dean said, "We'd be moving out of this town soon, so you know... he's just out there. Probably won't be back for awhile."

"He graduated top of his class, didn't he?" Mike asked.

"You betcha."

"You must be proud."

"You know I am," Dean said, and the tone of the conversation went from light to loaded, just with his one statement - "I'd do anything for that kid."

Silence, so long and all at once too short. Mike Florini got the message: if he wanted to do anything to Sam, he'd have to go through Dean first.

"I know," Mike said simply.

"I'm kind of like Uncle Jerry that way--" Dean began.

"Don't you be talking about him," Mike snapped, cutting him off.

_Uncle Jerry_, Sam remembered. Mike's late older brother. He had been the outsider looking in on that death too...

... _The viewing room was hushed and tight; it felt like a small, concrete box with no air and no light; lifeless, and all at once quite bursting with nervous energy, like the fuse of a bomb running on death._

_He was Sam Brown today, rookie reporter for the _Indie Gazette_. He was about to watch the execution of a notorious serial killer for the very first time. _

_He sat next to a gruff man named John Winchester, who at any other time would have been either 'dad' or 'sir;' today, they pretended to be nothing but strangers incidentally sitting together, waiting to watch a macabre show. John Winchester was in the gallery to watch the lethal injection of a friend, Jerry Florini. He was the only friend or relative of Florini to watch. Everyone else in the gallery were either relatives of those Florini had victimized or government officials including those who caught him and those who prosecuted his case, his defense attorney, and a smattering of reporters._

_They sat quietly most of them, except for those murmuring to themselves that the day they've long waited for_ justice_ to be brought forth had finally come, but that it still did not feel right. That nothing can bring back those they loved and lost. That this was still too good for that crazy _sonofabitch_._

_They all settled down in their seats, facing a large glass pane that was covered from the other side by a dried-blood-dull-red curtain. There was a large clock in the room, and at the very second the clock struck the hour of 4 pm, the red curtains were parted by a uniformed prison officer, offering the a view of the execution room beyond. It was a sickeningly flat gray space, just walls and machines around a leather bed and the man of the hour himself, Jerry Florini, standing in his prison jumpsuit, ready to be strapped in for his too-soon trip to the after-life._

_Sam felt his father stiffen up beside him. Their father knew a bevy of hunters, trusted a scant few of them, and of that scant few, genuinely liked maybe just one or two. One of them was Jerry Florini, who was now scheduled for execution for a host of crimes he did not commit. But what else can you say, really, when a werewolf turns back to human form after you shoot it? Or when you lose a person in the middle of an exorcism? If you stab a human-like thing in the heart? If you desecrate graves? If you're so poor you use fake credit? Florini did what any other hunter does on a regular basis, except he got caught. Open and shut case, pat a copper on the back, maybe give him a promotion for getting one more sicko off the streets. There was no way to justify Florini's actions short of insanity, but that didn't fly so well, especially since at the start his pride was too high to play it up. Now all the possible routes provided by the legal system were exhausted, and here they all were: Florini at the very front of death row, John watching because he had his own code of honor for his friends like that, and Sam beside him pretending none of this monumentally mattered to him._

_Florini was handsome once, Sam mused. Sandy, dark-blond hair, clear eyes, reckless grin. His voice was rich and humorous, his wit quick and sharp. Florini was 'Uncle Jerry' for a long time, he remembered. Dean's first few old-school rock n' roll cassette tapes came from him, and the mix tapes were gleaned from the older hunter's collection. The first editions of_ Busty Asian Beauties_ that Dean had ever set eyes upon were found in odd corners in Florini's library. While these were admittedly banes that Sam now had to live with, the one great thing about Jerry Florini was that he was a big brother to another hunter, Uncle Mike. Uncle Jerry made it cool to be a big brother to somebody, and a young Dean duly took notice. Sam reflected that their father seldom exposed his two sons to the underworld of hunting subculture and limited their interactions with other hunters, but the brother-thing, coupled with the fact that John had served with Jerry when they were in the Service in the 70s, made the Florinis a good point of reference for the Winchester boys. They lost touch after Jerry was arrested and summarily put on death row. Sam did not think watching his execution would hit him quite so hard after all that time, except his stomach had knotted in ways he did not expect._

_The reason became glaringly clear minutes after the curtains parted. Dean Winchester – Dean Auden today, rookie jailer in the prison– stepped inside the execution room and started helping strapping Jerry Florini in. They had the same height, Sam noted in numbing realization when Dean stood next to Florini and ushered him to lie down. The same color of hair, the same clear eyes._

_The older hunter was shaking, afraid now as anyone would be despite a lifetime of bravery and heroism, eyes haunted and lonely and latched onto Dean as if looking for one sympathy. Dean gave it subtly, and only Sam and his father would have noticed. Sam imagined Dean's hands, warm and steady and reassuring in that room, even as he laid the older hunter on his death bed, even as he helped tie him down. Sam watched Dean wind the straps to the man's wrists, and discreetly gave him a reassuring squeeze, before letting go._

_Their father could not have done it, to have been in there with Florini. Logistically, because he was older and did not fit the rookie-jailer-transfer cover, and he was also known to the jail because he visited Florini once in awhile. Sam was relieved for the existence of the practical limitations because he felt his father would not have been psychologically prepared for it either; he might have gone crazy and done something in there, which would not have helped anybody._

_Settled in for the ride, Florini was asked if he had any final words. He hesitated, said he was at peace with his God and with himself. He said that he did not want to die and that he felt he did not deserve it, but that he hoped his death would fix something for somebody. He ended the short speech with one sentence in Latin, something he knew the hunters in the room would understand. _Tell my brother I love him, and that I'm sorry it all came down to this_._

_They dosed him. He closed his eyes. He breathed in, then out, again and again until he didn't anymore. It was both uneventful and unbearable._

"I'm sorry," Dean said quickly, "I guess it still hurts, huh? Even after all this time? To lose your brother. It'll never go away."

"Shut up," Mike growled, and the cool veneer he had gone into the room with was vanishing quickly.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

"Where's your brother, Dean?" Mike asked, all casual pretensions gone now, replaced by the low, dangerous tone.

"I told you he went out," Dean lied.

It was not the first lie they ever told Uncle Mike, and it also wasn't the first one he did not believe...

_"...How did my brother die?" Mike Florini asked the Winchesters, hours after they sat through Jerry's execution._

_"Peacefully," John said without hesitation, "Like he just went to sleep."_

_But it was a lie. There was nothing peaceful about it and they all knew that, It was just _cold_. That kind of death did not carefully lift a man from one life to another, it just plainly_ ended_ him. It was the difference between jumping off a cliff with arms wide open and flying, and being thrown off of it. It was that much different. _

_Then again... a man asks you how his brother died and he does not ask the question, not really. He's asking you to lie._

_"Thank you John" Mike said quietly, "For being there for him when I couldn't."_

_Mike was a wanted man on the run himself, Sam noted, for the same crimes as his older brother whom he had hunted with. It was why the only safe place they could meet and tell him about what happened was a seedy bar out in the middle of nowhere._

_"You asked me to," John said, "He'd have wanted it too, and I wanted to be there. He said to tell you he loves you, and that he's sorry it all came down to this."_

_Mike nodded, turned glassy eyes away from John and looked at Sam and Dean, as if looking for anything else to think or talk about._

_"Boys," he said as he cleared his throat, "You're all grown up. Who'd have thought anything coming from your father would come out so damn good-looking."_

_"You kidding?" John asked, "Sam looks like me."_

_Sam's brows rose. He observed that too, but had never heard his father say it and never imagined it would be said quite like that._

_"I'm sorry for your loss, Uncle Mike," Sam told him quietly._

_"Not like this hasn't been on the calendar for years, huh, Sammy?" Mike asked._

_"It's just 'Sam' now," Sam corrected him, "It's just Dean who—"_

_Florini's eyes actually crinkled in muted humor, "He finally conned you into believing he can do that, huh?"_

_"Crap, you're right," Sam's eyes narrowed in irritation, "Damn it."_

_Mike turned to Dean, "Good job on that, by the way. You pick that up from Jerry or something? How to turn stupid, impressionable kid brothers from a very macho Mike to a lame-ass 'Mikey?'"_

_Dean smiled at him slightly, almost shyly, "Yeah."_

_Mike pursed his lips together, "Your daddy said you were on the inside."_

_Dean gave him a short nod. Sam noted that a cat caught his older brother's tongue today, but then again Dean just did not do grief very well and being 'on the inside' could not have been easy. He did not speak about Jerry Florini on the car ride away from the execution site at all._

_Mike stared at him for a long time, waiting to be told something it seemed, anything at all. He was searching for something new to know about his brother, as if he was not dead, as if there could still be news, instead of just memories._

_"Was he scared?" Mike asked, finally realizing the younger hunter was not going to give up anything freely, "What was he thinking? What was he..." he stared at Dean, caught the glazed look in his eyes._

_"He was as macho as always," Dean finally said, taking pity on him. His eyes streaked sad, then was masked in that adroit, casual manner of his, "You know him."_

_"Yeah," Mike echoed quietly, "To the very end, huh. Well. He's in a better place now." He picked up his glass, raised it, "Let's just drink to my brother, all right? Greatest damn hunter in the world, probably having a romp with the angels up there, 'cos he sure as hell wasn't scoring on them Victoria's Secret ones down here."_

_The three Winchesters raised their glasses, downed the drink all in a gulp. Sam watched his brother let the lip of the glass linger on his lips a little bit longer, as if he wished there were more._

_"What are you gonna do now, Mike?" John asked._

_"I'm hitting Jerry's burial site for saltin and burnin," Mike replied, "Then it's business as usual. I got a lot more ax to grind, now. Jerry died for this job so I can't stop, I can't.... I can't not think this is the right thing to do."_

_"You need some help?" John asked, "Want some company?"_

_Mike paused, honestly thought about it, "Nah. Wanna be alone for a little while, John. Gotta let this thing marinade. I'm not gonna go do anything reckless or crazy, I guarantee you that. Jerry won't have any of that shit from me. But I just gotta be alone for a little while. You get that, don't you?"_

_"I get that," John said softly, "But you know all you gotta do is holler, right?"_

_"I know," Mike said, "Thanks."_

And Uncle Mike hollered all right. Called up their father months later about help with a hunt. John dropped everything and went. He dropped the downtime he had planned with his sons so soon after Sam's triumphant graduation. He dropped looking after Dean, who was ill with a bad case of the flu. Normally the brothers turned antsy whenever their father took on a job and left them behind, but it was with Uncle Mike for crying out loud, and just a few miles from the tiny, rundown single-bedroom house they've been calling home for the last few months. There seemed no reason not to let him go.

Which was a mistake, apparently.

"I know you're lying, Dean."

"Then you also know I won't be giving you a decent answer," Dean snapped.

"Where's your brother?" Mike barked at him.

"He's out," Dean growled, "And it's gonna do you good to do the same."

Sam watched his brother, marveling at the show of strength, and the unquestionable conviction. Dean has been sick as a dog for almost two weeks, was barely well enough to attend Sam's graduation days ago, but it was one he dared not miss. Sam still remembered him sitting out back, even if he had reserved seats by virtue of Sam's honorable achievements up front, ashamed because he looked unquestionably ill. He sat hunched and huddled in his clothes, their father beside him. He looked sick and weary, but proud of Sam and that pride sent waves across the room. Sam wondered if Dean left any of that pride to himself; Sam's graduation was his achievement too. Dean had taught him how to read, and the first things he'd ever written, he'd written with Dean's small, warm hands wrapped around his fingers – _You hold the pen like this, Sammy. _Right up to his very last finals test in high school a couple of weeks ago, Dean was helping him...

_"...Dean stop breathin' on me," Sam growled when he felt his brother stand behind him, looking over his shoulder as he worked. He was using the small dining table as a desk, and the entire thing was strewn over with paper and books. The only thing that wasn't related to school that was on the table was a steaming cup of coffee, because it was going to be a long night of studying._

_"I'm serious, man, stop breathin' on me," Sam insisted when Dean didn't move, "I don't wanna get sick too. I'm on the last stretch of high school, for crying out loud. Go infect me later."_

_"I'm not breathin' on you," Dean snapped indignantly, "Just checking on the work, genius. You've been on that one thing for hours and you look like you're pissed and when you're pissed you piss _me_ off, all right? So lemme look. See? You just missed an 'x' there."_

_"Yeah right," Sam snorted, but he checked the equation anyway. Dean had not done any of this in years, but he did not discount the fact that his brother had lazed and aced his way through some of the subjects somehow. He felt Dean walk away, and did not bother telling the older man that he had been right. Dean probably already knew that anyway._

_Dean coughed into his sleeve; that cough was beginning to sound rougher than a standard cold. "Dinner?" he asked Sam._

_"Not from you," Sam said in a sing-song tone._

_"You're bitchy when you're stressed," Dean said._

_"I gotta get this done," Sam said simply._

_"But you're already sure you're finishing high school," Dean pointed out, "This is that test for all those people who need a final shot to make it. What's with the bitching stress levels?"_

_"I told you I got accepted to college," Sam said impatiently as he worked, "But if my transcripts are perfect? I'm looking to get that free ride too, not just a partial grant."_

_Dean quieted a moment, muffled another cough that racked his body._

_"You should get that checked out--" Sam began._

_"So you've made up your mind, huh?" Dean asked, "You're leaving me and dad."_

_"I didn't say that," Sam said patiently, looking up from his work and at his brother with careful earnestness, because he knew this was important to Dean, "I haven't made up my mind yet. But I need to do well here, you know. Just in case I do decide to go to college."_

_"Just in case," Dean muttered._

_"I'm not gonna get more into this with you right now," Sam said, "I gotta study."_

_"But for the record--"_

_"I know," Sam said wearily, "It's not gonna fit in with our life, and dad's gonna piss bricks when he finds out. I know the drill, Dean. But now I gotta work."_

_"You gotta eat that's what you gotta do," Dean said, "You get pissy when you're hungry too, you know? Growing kid like you."_

_"At least I'm still growing."_

_"Bitch!"_

_"Jerk."_

That cough had turned into bronchitis days later, and then bronchial pneumonia not long after that. The test Sam had aced, and then college acceptance turned into full-ride to Stanford. Dean got steadily more miserable as Sam began to climb the rungs of the world. It was as if there was just a steady source of happiness in the world, such that where one took, he had to take it from somebody. Sam succeeds and Dean gets sick. Sam leaves and Dean stays. Sam gets shoved into the relative safety of a closet and his brother – ill to begin with – gets stuck on the outside with a homicidal maniac.

"I don't want to hurt you, Dean," Mike said.

"Sure you do," Dean told him, "'Cos anyone who wants to get ahold of Sammy has no choice. What happened to you, Uncle Mike? What the hell happened to you?"

"I'm like I've always been," Mike told him grimly, "A little bit dented, a little bit scarred, _whatever_. But I'm still a hunter and I'm still doing the job, kid. And your brother... he's the job this time around."

"You've lost your goddamn mind--"

"Have I?" Mike countered, peering closely at Dean, "Have I really, Dean?"

"Yeah," Dean said, "I'd fucking say so."

Mike pursed his lips, "You know Dean... when Sam was a kid, he asked me something funny. I figured there were some things he couldn't ask you or your daddy, so he went to me. He said he knew his mommy died in a fire and that he was just a baby then, but could he remember the things he saw? Could he remember things he saw when he was just six months old? Because he could see a woman burning on the ceiling."

Sam's heart pounded in his chest, vaguely remembering that he did ask that of Mike Florini once, because there were some things he just didn't get to ask Dean and their dad about his mom.

"Hours later," Mike said, "Somewhere else, I get wind of a fire like the one your mom died in. I think Sam made it happen, Dean. Just by his mind. Either that, or he saw it before it happened--"

"This is ridiculous," Dean said, "He was just a kid for crying out loud. That was just him, having nightmares about the things he just found out about hunting."

"He was _six_ when he asked me this, Dean," Mike said, "I thought nothing about it; he was cute as a button, you know, this poor kid having nightmares about his dead mother, right? But then I hear snatches here and there over the years: weird kids, more dead mothers... and it comes together."

"You're full of shit, you know that?" Dean erupted at him, and his voice broke into a cough that Sam knew he'd been trying to hold back to make a show of being strong, of being able to handle Florini. That facade was gone now as he doubled over.

"You all right there, Dean-o?" Mike asked.

"Shut up," Dean gasped, "Goddamnit."

"I'm sorry this has to happen Dean," Mike said, "You have to know that. But Sam has to die. You'll protect him as much as you can, but I'm telling you right now, I'll keep coming at him 'til I'm dead. It's just the job, Dean. You're a hunter, you understand. I'll always be willing to die for the hunt. My brother died for the hunt too. It's for the best."

Mike stood up, and Sam could have sworn the older hunter was looking straight through the broken slat of the closet at him, from the inside looking out at him, ready to drag him in.

_Dean and Sam sat next to each other in the living room, watching a rerun of, of all things, _Sabrina the Teenage Witch_. Dean found one of Sabrina's aunts sexy _for a witch _and all that. He was wrapped up in a blanket, looking miserable-ill but finally recovering. He was supposed to be in bed, but their father out on a hunt without him meant that he was waiting in the living room until John got back from his hunt with Mike Florini._

_Sam just snickered at the commentary, and was about to say something scathing when they heard Dean's cellphone ring from the next room, which was the one the boys slept in._

_"Get it for me Sam," Dean whined as he half-faked a cough, "I'm sick."_

_"You're abusive, that's what you are," Sam pointed out, but he predictably stood up. He walked toward the room, even as the phone rang a few times and then quieted. "Probably already missed it anyway," he called out as he stepped inside the bedroom, "Where the hell did you put that damn thing?"_

_Sam heard the house phone start to ring. It was perched on a wall in the living room, and he also heard Dean groaned but get up and made a grab for it, "'Ello."_

_It was quiet for a moment as Dean listened to whoever was on the other line. It was probably their dad, because no one could shut Dean up quite that effectively--_

_"Do you need me to come get you?" Dean asked urgently, which made Sam's own heart stop. Sam heard a car pulling up in front of their house, and he glanced out the bedroom window. It was Mike Florini's old truck._

_"Why aren't you with Uncle Mike?" Sam heard Dean ask as he snatched up Dean's cellphone and stepped out into the living room. Florini knocked at the door, saying, "Open up, Dean, I can hear you in there!"_

_Sam headed for the door, ready to open it for the other hunter. Dean looked up at Sam, alarm in his eyes. He dropped the phone he was holding, and intercepted his younger brother. He hasn't moved this much and this quickly in days, and he already looked pale and winded._

_"Dean--" Sam began, only to be cut off by Dean's warm hand – _but that fever had already broken_! - over his mouth._

_"Trust me and shut up."_

_Sam knew that tone, and the trust was never questionable. He blinked and nodded._

_"Hold yer horses, Mike!" Dean called out, and he gulped at a cough, "I'm coming from the can!"_

_He turned Sam around the living room, looked to be struggling with his options. _

_He lowered his voice to a whisper, explaining, "I don't know what's going on, but Mike Florini's gone off the deep end and wants something from you. That was dad on the phone; said Mike trapped him somewhere, took his cel, slashed at the tires of the car. He's coming soon but I gotta keep Mike away from you, try to get you outta here."_

_"But the car's with dad," Sam argued, also in a whisper, "Mike carries the keys to his car so we can't grab that and I doubt we can snatch those or hotwire that car fast enough before he catches up to us. Maybe we can hop out the window and make a run for it?"_

_"This house is in the middle of the nowhere, Sammy," Dean said, "And Mike's a great tracker. We run out there and we're on his turf. 'Sides... I can't..." he was breathless and struggling, "I can't protect you out there, like this. You get me?"_

_"Dean come on!" Mike insisted from the other side of the door._

_"I'm there, I'm there!" Dean called out, coughing again. To Sam, he said, "We gotta improvise. Mike doesn't know we know he turned on us, I just need a little bit of time to figure this out, and 'til dad gets here."_

_"The two of us can take him--" Sam began to argue, 'til he noticed Dean was weaving. Dean wasn't going to be taking anybody down, and as long as Sam had his brother to worry about during a fight on top of trying to knock out one of the best hunters out there, their options felt remarkably slim._

_Dean shoved Sam inside the storage closet in the living room; it was almost funny, this six-foot-plus guy shoved in a closet like he was six years old instead._

_"Seriously?" Sam asked his brother._

_The tension eased from Dean for the briefest of moments, "Tough guy like you, Sammy? This'll be the last place he looks."_

_"What about you?" Sam asked. _

_"He knows I'm in here, he doesn't know you are," Dean replied, "I'll take care of this but for god's sake, Sam: don't go out."_

_"What?! Why would he--No--!"_

_"I don't have time to argue this," Dean snapped, "Now's not the time. You trust me?"_

_"'Course I d--"_

_Dean shut the closet door on his face._

"Wait," Dean said to Mike, grabbing at the older hunter's forearm forcefully, even as he was still doubled over from coughing, "No, please."

Mike tried to shake off his grip, but Dean was resolute and clung tight, pressed himself against the other hunter insistently. "I'm sorry, Dean."

"No--"

Mike backhanded him across the face, sending him to the floor, the seat he had been on toppling down with him. It took all of Sam's self-control not to jump out to help his brother. But Dean tossed him a warning glare from the floor, keeping him rooted to where he was inside the storage closet.

"Sammy!" Mike called out as he walked past the closet, went deeper into the house, "Come out come out wherever you are!"

Mike walked into the kitchen, his gun held ready in front of him. He walked down the hall, toward the two bedrooms in the small house.

Dean bolted to his feet, opened the closet to let Sam out. He shoved the keys he had snatched from Mike's coats during the minor tussle into Sam's hands.

"Run for his car, lock the doors, drive away, don't look back," he said as he shoved his brother toward the door, "Now, Sam!"

"I won't go without you," Sam told him, knowing that anytime Dean said _Don't look back_ it meant he wasn't sure he could follow.

"He doesn't want to hurt me," Dean promised him, "He's after you. Now go. Go!"

"Dean--"

"I promise," Dean insisted, "Please."

Sam gave him a short nod, then ran. His booted feet pounded on the hard ground, pounded with his heart, pounded with the sound of the bullet that went from gun to torn air through to the torn flesh at his back.

"Sam, no!" Dean yelled.

He hit the ground senseless.

" " "

"Sammy?"

He moaned, struggled against the hands on his shoulders, shaking him awake. The movement caused fiery pain to course up and down his body, emanating from his back, just by his right shoulder.

"Don't try to move," came the low voice of his father, "You got shot in the shoulder. Just stay still, all right?"

Sam gasped to greater awareness, fought to get up from the ground he was lying by the stomach on, "Dean-- Dean's still in there--"

John patted him reassuringly on the uninjured shoulder, ordering, "Don't move," as the older Winchester ran back into the house. It wasn't the first order Sam had ever defied.

Growling and cussing and letting the bull-headedness that rang strong in his veins drive him, he pressed against the ground and struggled to his feet. He staggered, swayed, but let his determination carry him forward.

"Dean, no!" his father cried out, and _damn _but did that make Sam twice as strong. Sam stagger-ran to the door, all caution and pain out the window in fear for his older brother. What he saw as he stood by the door, however, was one he did not expect at all.

Mike Florini was lying on the floor, unconscious and limp and so bloodied that he seemed faceless-unrecognizable. His older brother was pale, shaking and bruised, straddling the older hunter with fists torn and messy and unquestionably _overused_. He trembled violently, and his eyes looked both manic and lost. Their father was trying to hold him back.

"Dean, it's all right!" John said as he held his son from beating up Florini all the more, "Stand down, son!"

Dean's breaths were heaving and ragged and there was no indication whatsoever that he even heard his father's commands. He looked like a mad dog, sick and rabid and hideously bloodthirsty.

"Stand down!" John barked again, and he held his son in a wrestler's grip, trying to calm him down, get him to submit. Dean kept squirming, fists and elbows making frustrated movements at escape. He was turning purple, and soon the fight bled out of him. He succumbed to his father's grip, sagged against him.

"He g-got," Dean gasped and stammered, breaths coming in hard and broken by coughing. His eyes were fever-bright again, tears streaming down his cheeks from sickness and grief, "He got S-s-sam."

"No he didn't," Sam said, stepping inside the room. Dean looked up at him with eyes clouded with illness, fatigue and breathtaking hope. The naked vulnerability was disarming, and it terrified Sam. He fell to his knees in front of his father and brother, hesitant, like he did not know what to do with all that love and with all that fear.

But Dean did. He grabbed his brother forward, pressed his younger brother against his chest. Sam felt the strength of Dean's grip at the back of his neck, felt Dean's fingers twine and tug and tangle at his hair. He held back just as fiercely. From Sam's place, he could hear Dean's heart thud a mile a minute, felt his burning skin, felt the deprived rise and fall of his chest, felt the crackling cough and the incessant shaking. He could smell Dean's sweat and beneath it, the medicine he'd been taking, the ointment he used for pain relief, the soft soap from the sponge bath he had hours ago. The smell of Mike Florini's blood underwrote them all, stuck on Dean's clothes and his swollen fists and his psyche.

Their father extricated himself from his sons, walked over to Mike's body. Mike looked broken and very much _beat to death_, but Sam didn't know for sure until his father pressed fingers to Mike's throat for a heartbeat, and then he shot Sam a look of fear before he hid it.

_Outside-looking in_...

"Is he alive?" Dean asked.

"Yeah," John said, but Sam knew it to be a lie. Dean had been fever-blind and enraged when he pounded into Mike Florini; he'd thought this man had killed his brother. But killing _Uncle Mike_ still would have hurt him even now, and he didn't need that right now.

"What was that about?" Dean gasped. His chest heaved beneath Sam's ear, a struggle up and then a fast down, again and again, shorter each time.

"Just stand down now Dean," John said, "I'm calling 911."

" " "

John had no choice but to report what happened to the cops when they got saddled with Mike Florini's dead body in their house and a bullet was lodged in his younger son's shoulder. It made the news that the famous fugitive - the last of the Florini brothers- was finally off the streets when he came after an innocent family that fought back. Once the story reached the cops and hit the news, there was no more lying to Dean. The cops took his statement from his hospital bed, while he was still hooked up to machines that helped him breathe and tanked up on drugs to help him heal. His younger brother, also hospitalized, corroborated his statement expertly – _Mike Florini was a friend of the family before he turned fugitive. He returned and tried to kill us, Dean killed him in self-defense_ – and then they turned away the reporters and the families of the 'victims' of the Florini brothers who wanted to meet them.

Sam had a number of visitors from school; friends, classmates, teachers. Hours of his mornings were occupied with them, and at night he sat with his older brother, who had just their dad visiting him. The older Winchesters were in the middle of another one of their hushed talks when Sam stood by the door.

"Should you be walking around so much?" Dean asked, and his voice was still breezy.

"It's my shoulder that's injured," Sam replied, "Not m'legs." He stepped forward, dragging his IV pole with him as he went. Their father vacated the seat by Dean's bed, and Sam thanked him and took over.

"You good?" Dean asked, when Sam settled.

"Yup," Sam said, "You?"

"Always."

Sam snorted. He paused, bit his lip before asking, "So do we know what Florini was talking about?"

No more _Uncle Mike_; the personalization would have hurt Dean. Just let Florini be some stranger they didn't know.

"He just lost his mind, that's all," John said, "Ran into some demons, they dicked around with how he thought. He's been off since his brother died."

Sam heard him, but he watched Dean's face instead. "What do you think?"

"Like he said," Dean replied after a beat.

"So there's nothing--"

"There's nothing wrong with you Sam," Dean sighed, "All right? I mean, do you even remember what he was talking about in there?"

_Yes._

"No," Sam lied, "I don't."

Dean sighed again, ran a weary hand over his face. His knuckles were swollen and bruised and cut up something fierce. He looked at them, and Sam knew what he was thinking.

"You had no choice, Dean."

Dean blinked at his hands, "First person I ever--"

--_killed_.

"--hurt," he said at last, "First person I ever hurt."

_And it had been for me_, Sam thought. His brother had killed for him, even as Sam was lying to him right this very moment about what he knew. He had seen a woman burning on the ceiling. He had asked Mike Florini about it and someone did die like that shortly afterward. Maybe there was something wrong with him. Maybe Mike was right to kill him, which meant that maybe Dean was wrong to murder him. Sam's stomach clenched, and he felt sick. He felt like he wanted to get out of here.

"You had no choice, Dean," John repeated what Sam had said. Sam knew that saying it over and over didn't make it any more or less right.

They were neck-deep in this life, now, Sam knew, for more than his father's obsession with his mother's killer, more than their usual lies and petty crimes. This was blood on Dean's hands now, and he was tainted and dirtied by it. Dean had killed for him, and he wasn't even sure he was worth it.

_I'd rather be outside looking in_, he thought, _rather than drowning._

Dean shuddered, started shivering again. The relapse was hard on him, and coupled with the emotional roller-coaster of having thought Sam was dead to murdering Sam's killer with his bare hands, Dean was a long way from regaining full-strength. Sam pulled the blankets up to Dean's shoulders, and his older brother growled at him in annoyance.

_Let me take care of you_, he implored silently, _Because I'll only get to do it for a little while more. I've made up my mind. _

_I'm getting out. _

_I don't want you dying for me, and I don't want you killing for me; I'm just a nobody. You do what you have to do in this life, Dean, and if you fall, I'll be on the outside and I'll catch you. We won't be two Florini brothers on death row, one a little bit ahead but both walking down the same path headed for the same end. _

_I'm getting out._

_I'm getting out, I'm staying out and when you need someone to pull you free from all of this, that's where I'll be_.

_The End_

_November 8, 2009_

Thanks for reading, and 'til the next post!


	3. The Line

Author: Mirrordance

Title: **Crossing**

Summary: 3 versions of the final hunt that could have pushed Sam to leave for Stanford... The lines blur between good and evil on (1)a job that forces John to choose between his sons; (2)a mission to kill another hunter; and (3)a job that requires Sam to kill a child to save his brother.

**Hi guys!**

Thanks to all who read, alert-ed and favorite-d and especially all who reviewed the first 2 chapters of _Crossing_. Part 3 took a long time coming, and I hope you still find it interesting, haha... I was out of the country again - hence the delay - but I hope the quality did not suffer and that you will still enjoy the read and let me know what you think. A bit of a warning though: the topic of this third installment will be fairly controversial (the case is about a suicide cluster and what will probably be a debatable kill at the end) and I have come to expect a very discerning, mature frame of mind from the SN fandom, so readers, please heed this content warning :) Without further ado, the last installment of _Crossing_:

" " "

**3: The Line**

" " "

_New York_

_Late Spring 2001_

**NOW**

" " "

"There's no way around this, Sam," his father told him quietly, "You gotta do it."

Sam could have sworn his entire body was shaking, but the gun that leveled at the back of the oblivious little boy's head was remarkably steady.

"Don't you do it, Sam," his older brother countered, making him look up at Dean, "Not for me, man. Not for me."

_Then _the hand started to shake.

Dean looked and sounded like a mockery of himself, all wide-eyed and teary and just so darn _sorry_. It was jarring to see his face so unmasked. That, and the fact that he was standing on the jumping, business-end of a building balcony, looking like he was damn serious about taking a dive.

"He'll keep the kid alive if you just step off that ledge," John told him, stepping toward Dean.

Dean jerked away as John came closer, and Sam's heart dropped to his stomach when Dean slipped for a breathless moment, regained his footing, and then slammed an even tighter grip against the metal railing behind him.

"Get away from me!" he yelled at his father.

"Okay, okay," John said softly, opening his palms up to placate Dean, "Okay, Dean-o, whatever you want, you got it. Just... let's all just be calm, all right? No one do anything crazy."

Dean laughed at the wind, and tears leaked from his eyes, "Yeah. Sure thing, old man. That's fricking hilarious."

The macabre humor was an echo of his old self, Sam reflected, and he clung to that, that maybe they can still get out of this mess somehow. Besides, Dean's observation was astute 'cos yeah, maybe the situation was a little bit more demented than normal: Dean about to jump off the balcony of a Manhattan high-rise to his death, Sam about to shoot an innocent kid in the head.

" " "

_Newark, New Jersey_

_One Week Ago_

**THEN**

" " "

_"The rate these babies are going," Dean whistled, "Even we could afford to live in one. Only dad could find a hunt in the real estate section of the paper."_

_Sam wasn't as impressed, "High-rise condo in New York City with a doorman and a view of Central Park for $4,000 a month? I guess that's what counts as supernatural nowadays."_

_"The man is a master," Dean shrugged, "I'd never have known to check why the damn apartments came so cheap. I didn't even know four grand was cheap for anything."_

_"You'd have found it, Dean," Sam argued, "So would I. It's no big deal."_

_Dean looked at him glumly and sighed in resignation. Sam was pissed at their dad again. It was a fairly common occurrence since he hit thirteen, but a bigger body, a louder voice and a whole lot of long-repressed rebellion has been giving him the guts to bubble over more and more lately. _

_"It's a big deal," Dean insisted, finding himself yet again in that familiar position of trying to sell their father's attributes to Sam in an effort to cool him off and make him look at their father's good side. Sometimes it worked, but since Sam graduated from high school a couple of weeks back, mostly it didn't._

_"I wouldn't have known," Dean said, "Or if I knew, it's only because he trained us well."_

_"Training," Sam scoffed, "It's more like child labor. Or Pavlov's dogs. Or--"_

_As if on cue, their father slid into the booth of the diner, sitting next to Dean. He had parked the car as Sam and Dean went ahead to order their food. Dean had suggested it, saying it would get them back on the road sooner. But it had been a guise to pry Sam and their dad apart for two minutes, just so they could have a civil lunchtime. _

_John and Sam had an argument in the car about... _shit_, Dean forgot. The days and the arguments melded together in a miserable time-lapse montage that looked and sounded more and more alike every time. There was that fight about the name on a credit card, some commentary on the slogan of a diner that they passed by and didn't even eat in... the only thing John and Sam could agree on was that Dean put the music up too loud in the car. He's been dying to tell them for years that he'd bust his eardrums if that got them both to either shut up or just agree on something._

_John sat next to Dean; it probably didn't mean anything, really, just that Dean was slightly smaller in built now and that he had a habit of making room for his father. But Dean's gaze shot to Sam's, because his younger brother's expression went steely and he wondered if Sam sometimes thought about any of that._

_"So this job," John said, invitingly. The case briefing was safe conversation most of the time, and Sam eagerly accepted this Winchester-style peace-offering._

_"So the rent hits the floor 'cos people living in three apartment units on the same floor all committed suicide at roughly the exact same time," Sam narrated, "A single woman jumps to her death, the couple living next door slash their wrists and bleed out, and a three-person family also living next door overdose on sleeping pills."_

_Dean winced, "That's a serious body count for a short amount of time."_

_A waitress placed three steaming cups of coffee on top of the table; some sort of mocha-ish concoction for Sam, dead-black for their dad, and black with an overload of sugar for Dean. Three hands reached out knowing exactly which cup was his own, maneuvering around each other with their sleeves not even touching. The movement was as effortlessly coordinated as the best kind of Winchester hunt, and Dean wondered why on Earth the two stubborn idiots with him had to keep fighting when things could go this smoothly._

_"Lindy Astley," Dean led on after a sip of coffee, "Is vic number one from Apartment Unit 15-B. 'Creative Acquisitions Director at G Clef Productions Inc,' says the obit. Cops report that she piped in some music, grabbed a glass of wine, and then just jumped off her fifteenth-story balcony. The doorman recognized her right away, and then management gave the NYPD access to her apartment shortly after. There was no evidence of foul-play, but no suicide note and no history of psychological problems."_

_"I got the couple," John said, "Unit 15-A is Michael North and Bronson Hitt – life partners, together since '99."_

_"'_Life partners_?'" Dean repeated._

_"Yes," John snapped, "What?"_

_"It's just that some words kind of sound different when you're the one saying it," Dean replied before belatedly adding, "Sir."_

_"Dean," their father growled at him in warning before moving on, "North's a successful architect and the other guy's a wannabe artist. Same as Astley's case: they seemed all right, and nothing's changed for them to want to suddenly off themselves."_

_"Then there's the family in 15-C," Sam rounded up, "The Marins are as clean as a whistle. WASP-y mom writes an on-line column for gardening, the dad's a lawyer, and their son is a straight-A student and varsity soccer player. Mom and dad are active in the church community and the PTA, kid's a volunteer for a food aid program, they have tons of money, and they still spend Sunday mornings in Central Park eating hotdogs together. Like in all the other cases, no foul-play, but no reason to do the deed themselves either. The kid... he was only twelve."_

_Dean shook his head in dismay, "These people have absolutely nothing in common except they live in the same floor in the same building, right?"_

_"Different ages," Sam expounded, "Different genders, different civil statuses, careers, industries... they didn't even really know each other. It's gotta be the property. It's the only thing tying them together. But there has been no history of violence in the building or the land where it stands, not before the suicides and not after."_

_"No suicides after could be just because no one lives there anymore," Dean pointed out._

_"That's about as far as the initial research can take us," John decided, "Especially if the crime or accident that resulted in this haunting was unreported. We're hitting that place right after we eat lunch."_

_"I'll call up the realtor," Sam said, "Set up an appointment to check out the properties. Security's gonna be pretty tight for a place that upscale, and we need the initial recon to see who they would let in, and to get a layout of the place."_

_The food arrived, and the discussion softened from the hunt to other things._

_"It's getting pretty hot already," Dean said, "Summer's coming in damn early. And outdoor street-parking in New York is just the pits. We're gonna be driving around in an oven, mark my word."_

_"Well I ain't paying for the overpriced garages," John said sternly._

_"We don't pay anyway," Sam said, "We use other people's money."_

_"You think all that is easy?" John snapped._

_"Are you two serious?" Dean groaned, "Are you gonna ruin my lunch fighting about parking here?"_

_"We're not fighting," Sam said, primly, "It's a discussion."_

_"Tomato, to-mah-to," Dean sighed, but his brother and his father did let the topic go, at least for the moment._

_The temporary peace was cut off by a ringing cell phone, and all three Winchesters struggled with their respective pockets to check if the call was theirs._

_"Mine," Sam said in a clipped tone._

_"That better be about work," John warned him, "I ain't paying that thing for your vices, Sam."_

_"You don't pay for anything," Sam pointed out again, "The money's someone else's!"_

_"Aw, crap," Dean sighed. Their voices were escalating, and the phone kept ringing and ringing. He was getting a headache. "Sam, just answer the damn thing, will you?"_

_Sam shook his head in annoyance, but rose from his seat and did as he was told. He walked all the way out the diner to speak to whomever was calling._

_"Who the hell is he talking to?" John asked Dean._

_"Oh you know the little squirt," Dean shrugged, "Gathers friends around him like he picks up viruses. It's probably just some buddy of his from high school. You get calls for hunts, I get calls from chicks, and my geek-boy little brother over there, is probably getting a lowdown on what happened at last week's Book Club or something. _Exciting_ stuff."_

_John frowned, "He liked that last town, didn't he?"_

_"It's where he graduated with his fricking honors," Dean said, "Where he got to go to the prom with the hottest chick in school. It was a place where we actually stayed and used our real names, dad. Of course he liked it there."_

_"It was a bitch getting him back on the road," John admitted, "I thought he was gonna bury his feet on the ground and grow some roots and kill his old man in his sleep and use me for fertilizer."_

_"It was the longest place we've stayed in awhile," Dean said, "He didn't just fit in, dad, they all loved him there. Besides... you know him and his fixation with this 'normal' crap."_

_"I thought if I just shut up and let him finally graduate from high school that he'd get it out of his system," John winced._

_"But he's still a bitch?" Dean chuckled, before his eyes softened, "Come on, dad. Can you blame the guy? You got decades of 'normal' before... before mom. I managed to steal four years. Sam? He's never had a lick of the thing. He deserves to bitch. Besides, he still does the job, doesn't he? Let him run that mouth, he does what he has to anyway."_

_John looked over at Sam from the glass windows lining one side of the diner. The youngest Winchester was smiling, making grand gestures with his arms. Dean followed his gaze, and then looked back at his father. John could look so disarmingly wistful sometimes, and Dean wondered what he was thinking. Did their father feel regret? Did he feel the occasional jealousy Dean himself sometimes got when someone else can light up Sam like that? Did he really feel as pissed as he claimed about having to pay for a non-hunt-related call?_

_"He should let those ideas go," John said finally, "He's just wasting his time."_

_"It's okay, dad," Dean said, "It's just a few calls from a few friends once in awhile. It keeps him sane, which keeps me sane, huh?"_

_John forcibly looked away from Sam and quirked an eyebrow at Dean, "I think that ship has already sailed, son."_

_"Yeah, yeah," Dean waved at him carelessly, "Just go back to picking on me, why don't cha."_

" " "

_John reflected that maybe there was something to Dean's 'it keeps Sam sane' theory._

_Sam returned from his phone call looking slightly... blitzed was the only term that came to mind. He looked mildly bothered but also unabashedly lighter, looking a little bewildered but very much in better spirits. It was his best mood in weeks, since John had tossed out his threats and coerced the youngest Winchester into the backseat of the car that ultimately took him away from a town he had grown to love, just to go back to the road he hated._

_Sam ate his food without further complaint, took notes on their upcoming job, said nothing about John's use of a fake credit card to pay, pliantly stepped into the car when it was time to leave, even pumped the gas at his father's experimental request on a station stop._

_When they got back on the road, John watched Sam from the rearview mirror suspiciously, and then turned his gaze to Dean, who was driving – theoretically driving that is, because Dean also kept glancing at his younger brother too._

_"Dean," John growled at him._

_"Yeah, yeah," Dean said, focusing his eyes on the road instead of at Sam._

_John glanced up at the rearview mirror again to find that the exchange momentarily caught Sam's attention, but the youngest Winchester went back to smiling to himself as he gazed out the window._

_"So was it a woman?" John asked, unable to help himself. He was always a curious man, which was a good trait for a hunter, and a not-so good one for a father. All parents should expect a modicum of secrecy from their children, but Sam seemed to have tons._

_Sam actually barked out a laugh, "Yeah, dad, it was. But she's just a friend."_

_"Like Dean has friends?" John asked._

_Dean rolled back his eyes miserably._

_"Eww, god no," Sam said quickly._

_"What do you mean '_Eww-god-no_?'" Dean snapped._

_"It's nothing like that!" Sam insisted, "Whatever 'that' is. It was just some news from hom- from that last town. Nothing you'd care about."_

" " "

_Midtown Manhattan_

" " "

_Sam called the real estate agency and got them a viewing appointment to see the apartment with an agent. Her name was Janet, and she was two heads shorter than Dean and talked a mile a minute. She bobbed her head like a bird on crack, and her movements were quick, small and precise, like a Red Bull-ed ping-pong ball. She met the three Winchesters at the basement garage of the midtown high-rise and introduced herself and shook hands with each of the three hunters._

_"I love your car," she gushed, "A '67 Impala, is it? Oh... I can send my kid to college on that."_

_Sam's brows rose thoughtfully, and realized that her offer to meet them at the garage had been both courtesy, and a way to gage what they could possibly pay for._

_"So LeBeck, LeBeck..." she murmured, "I know your name from somewhere. You wouldn't be one of those Texas LeBecks, would you?"_

_"How'd you figure?" Dean asked her with crinkling, smiling eyes. Sam noted that his crafty older brother let slip a hint of fabricated accent there too, just to see how far she'd take it._

_"Oh the fancy car," she said as she led the way into the basement lobby and used a card to key-in the elevator to the 15th floor, "The effortless kind of..." she waved absently at their clothes, "Tough-guy look."_

_Sam looked up at the ceiling and sighed quietly; he had tried to convince his father that they should change into more presentable clothes, but the stubborn oldest Winchester had insisted that charm usually works when coercion doesn't, with or without a costume. While Sam was relieved that his father's stubbornness had no bearing on the investigation, he still hated it whenever his father was right and he was wrong._

_"You Texas oil men," she said with an amused shake of her head, "I had to look for a house for Trevor when his wife kicked him out. You know him?"_

_"Good ol' cousin Trevor," Dean said._

_"Cousin?" she asked, "He died in '93 and he was 77."_

_"His grandfather's cousin's sister and my aunt-twice-removed is related," Dean said swiftly, "Big family, crazy people, long story. You've met Trevor; you know what I'm talking about."_

_The elevator bell rang, and the doors opened to the fifteenth floor. Janet led the way out. John followed her and smacked Dean at the back of the head with some amusement, as Sam took the rear._

_"So four grand a month, huh?" John asked, "Is she a fixer-upper?"_

_"Oh no," Janet said enthusiastically as she walked past one door, and then stopped at the second apartment on the floor, 15-B, "The property is practically brand new."_

_She opened the door, and the apartment inside was just aglow with the light of late afternoon. It was from a wide array of glass windows and doors that led to a balcony attached to the living room. As promised, it did have a view of a considerable length of Central Park, now in all of its verdant spring-glory. The apartment was partially-furnished in simple, modern pieces and clean lines. The centerpiece of the room was a baby grand piano, stark and gleaming black against the light of the space. _

_Janet started talking about the area in square feet, about the building amenities the residents could take advantage of. She talked about the view and the closet space, and a whole lot of other things that kind of died against Sam's ears as he glanced at the EMF reader in his pocket. His eyes met his older brother's, and he shook his head in a negative; no readings of any kind._

_They went on a complete tour of the place; master bedroom, guest bedroom, walk-in closet, an office that could be converted to a small bedroom (at Janet's suggestion, since there was three of them), kitchen, dining room, the three bathrooms, blah, blah, blah, and Sam thought that there was nothing remotely normal about having this much space or property or money_. _But that was the extent of the weirdness of the place; the EMF remained silent._

_"So why's this place so dang cheap?" Dean asked her flat out, phrasing it as a joke, "Did someone die here?"_

_She bit a corner of her lip, "I wish you didn't bring that up, Mr. LeBeck. But I was informed that if asked, then I would have to be completely honest with you. We at New York Properties, Holdings and Real Estate Ventures Incorporated value the trust of our clients, and we only want you to be completely satisfied with our level of committed service and excellence."_

_Dean just blinked at her, and Sam almost laughed. The response was a whole lot of words and not a single decent answer between all of them. _

_"So that's a 'yes,' I take it," Sam said._

_"Not exactly," she said, "Someone jumped from the balcony, and some people died next door. So technically, no one died here-here. Do those count?"_

_"Do you have any other properties like this?" Dean asked suggestively, hoping she would also tour them to the two apartments next door, "My brother's really scared of ghosts."_

_"Oh there are no ghosts here," Janet guaranteed them, looking earnestly at Sam, "But sweetie, that's just really so sad for you."_

_Sam's jaws set in irritation at Dean, "What about other vacancies in this building?"_

_"We had some up 'til last week," she said, "But the two others on this floor have been snatched up, I'm sorry."_

_"The new tenants didn't mind the history of the place?" Sam asked._

_"They're out-of-state folk, didn't get to see all the hoopla in the news," she replied, "They didn't bother asking me why the place hasn't been snatched up so I didn't bother saying. This is actually the nicest one of the three apartments, but one family said it wasn't baby-proof so they picked a house that used to be owned by another family, and then these newlyweds really liked the one on the other side of this. So... what are you boys thinking? This is a real steal, immediate occupancy, and I swear there are no ghosts, I've slept in all three places at least once to make sure. And this apartment in particular, the last owner was in the music industry, and she wired it with serious sound-surround, just wound up around the house linked to an entertainment system. Pretty awesome stuff; neighbors next door complained it was too loud sometimes, but this'll be great for you Texas oil boys. I know you like to party."_

_"I love parties," Dean grinned at her, glinting eyes flicking to his father, "I don't know... I like this place, and we don't really scare easy."_

_"Oh goody!" she screeched, and it really sounded like something inhuman and something the Winchesters should start to hunt, "Just between us, the building owners are just dying to get any kind of cashflow on this property, to be honest – the developers have overexposed themselves but then again that is neither here nor there right now. If you give me the go-signal, I can give you the details of the contract immediately."_

_"Get them ready," John said._

_"Great," she said enthusiastically, already grabbing her phone and making her way to the door as she dialed, "You boys take in the view over there, let me just call a few people in my office to get the papers drawn up..." her voice kind of just drifted away the further she got, until it finally, finally quieted._

_"She's a talker," Dean commented, "What are you thinking, dad?"_

_The three Winchesters looked at their EMF meters, which still read nothing._

_"I thought we'd get a look at the two other places," John winced, "But that ain't happening now."_

_"And because this place has a doorman and security is tight because it's pricey," Sam said, "It's going to be hellish trying to get back in by our uh... usual style."_

_"Which is why we're staying," John said, "Take a good look at the place, and then get to know the neighbors a little bit too, which can get us in their houses."_

_"And if there's anything going on here," Dean added, "Those people will be sitting ducks without us around."_

_"The checks I'm issuing for the lease will bounce around a little but the con'll get back to them in a month," John said, "We'll be well out of here by then."_

_"Great, we get to live here for a while," Dean stretched out on the luxurious couch with a rakish grin, "We need a place to stay anyway. It's not much, but I'm easy to please."  
_

" " "

_John signed the lease agreement he didn't read with a name he didn't own, gave Janet an ingeniously fraudulent check that should bounce back to them in a month for the security deposit and another for the first two months, and gave her all of LeBeck's fraudulent social security and credit details._

_"You understand Mr. LeBeck," she told him, "That occupancy is immediate but if there are problems, we will have to consider everything moot and have to make arrangements to move you out while we sort things."_

_He gave her a devil-may-care grin, the one that he knew women liked. The one his late wife had once joked about barring him from using with anyone else._

_"They'll check out," he guaranteed her, "If not, you know where to find me."_

_She actually blushed, and then left them to their new home._

" " "

_"What a sweet deal," Dean exclaimed, as he and Sam lugged up their duffel bags from the car and into the elevator. He also juggled his father's bag in his arms, along with a shoebox of cassette tapes he wanted to test on the sound system, "Covered parking, damn fucking gorgeous house with a decent bed for a change, awesome jet showers and a tub without scum, and fricking sound-surround too!"_

_"It's kinda weird to think about," Sam said thoughtfully, "You know... that people live like this everyday. That people can live like this everyday."_

_"Yeah," Dean agreed, "But I mean it's nice and all, for a little while. Like, the time we have to finish this job before New York Properties, Holdings and Real Estate Ventures Incorporated Corporation Limited Shit Inc. catches up to the con. Longer than that and I'd be going nuts, I think."_

_"How do you know?" Sam asked, "I mean, look around you, Dean. Life can just be steady, you know. Nice. Calm, safe..."_

_"Living in a muh-muh-material world here, Sammy?" Dean teased._

_"Madonna, Dean?"_

_"Whatever," Dean mumbled, "You know what I mean. All this is like, fairy-dust. It's not real. Our life... the hunt... that's what's real."_

_"I guess," Sam conceded quietly as the elevator doors opened to the fifteenth floor. _

_The brothers walked side by side and Dean juggled the things in his arms to open the door. He dropped most of the things in the living room, and then headed straight for the sound system with his shoebox of cassettes, rubbing his hands together eagerly._

_Sam watched him with an amused shake of his head. His older brother sat cross-legged on the carpet, picked up a Led Zeppelin tape and then looked for where to insert the cassette, already humming. His head turned left, then right, then up and down._

_"What the hell?" he exclaimed._

_Sam laughed and patted him in the back to console him._

_"It's the new millennium, Dean," Sam said, "Go buy a CD."_

_"Why the hell didn't you tell me this damn thing didn't have a damn..." he searched his mind in frustration, "A damn hole for my tapes?"_

_"The lady who had that installed was in the music industry," Sam shrugged, "I thought maybe she'd have everything. I guess some people draw the line somewhere."_

_Dean just growled at him, tossed the tape back in the shoebox, before picking it up again more reverently and putting it back in._

_"Her loss," he muttered._

_The doors opened again, and their father walked in. He came from a quick walk to a corner shop, and the fancy apartment suddenly smelled like warm peach pie._

_"Holy crap," Dean breathed, "I think I died and went to—Dad? What the hell are you doing?"_

_John Winchester put the two boxes of pie he just bought on top of a table, and started toggling with the ribbon around one of them._

_"Shit," John said, "We're gonna give 'em next door; damned things got caught on each other and I messed them up."_

_Dean's eyes nearly crossed with the improbability of what was happening, "The pies aren't ours to eat, and we're giving them away with ribbons?"_

_"Just get over here and fix this," John ordered._

_"What makes you think I would know my way around-" Dean complained, but his father looked at him pointedly. Dean would know about ribbons for two very important reasons: he knew his way around women and therefore their presents and the dang things they put in their hair, and after he had taken a part-time job gift-wrapping in a toy store when he was a teenager, he would always fix up Sam's presents for his birthdays and in Santa's guise when they were kids._

_"Yes sir," he sighed, resignedly._

_"Sam," John ordered, "Be a good neighbor, go to the family next door and give 'em one of these."_

_"'Kay," Sam said with a shrug, slipping out of his outer shirt and picking up an overly-decent, earnest button-down polo from his duffel. He had last used it during graduation, a memory that normally would have made Dean grin to himself except he was presently annoyed about the no-eating-of-pie situation._

_"Sammy, man," Dean said as he finished up the ribbons with a flourish, "Always with the costumes."_

_"Makes the con easier," Sam said with a grunt as he put his clothes on, "Let people think what they want based on the visual, and I got less to do."_

_"Make sure you get to invite yourself in," John said, "Stay as long as you can over there; keep track of the EMF, and in case we need to break in their house later to look around some more, check if they have surveillance or nanny cameras and find out some of their habits, when they're gonna be out, things like that."_

_"He's staying there?" Dean whined, "So if they offer him to share the pie he gets to eat it? Why not me?"_

_"It's just demographics, Dean," Sam sighed, "Next door's a family of three, a young couple with a baby boy."_

_"And what?" Dean sneered, "Sam has the look of that son everyone wished they could have? Because every parent hopes that one day their gooey little baby can grow up to be a gooey adult male? I'm awesome with babies, they'll love me! And I love pie!"_

_"You have a look that won't even let you through the door," Sam snapped._

_"Is that a bet?"_

_"If the woman answers it then fine," Sam said, "But if it's her husband, you're out on your ass."_

_"Dean, just shut it," John said without heat, "I got the newlyweds."_

_"And where will I be?" Dean asked, "Why don't I get to share the pie with anyone? I can take it to the lovebirds."_

_"You're honeymoon buzzkill," Sam pointed out._

_"I'm too good-looking?" Dean asked him, his look shifting seamlessly from annoyance to glinting humor, "Say it, Sammy. I'll kill the honeymoon-stage because I'm too good-looking."_

_"You're getting too damn fat to have any more pie, how about that?" Sam said wryly._

_"Jealousy doesn't become you, Sammy," Dean said, "You really are a chick."_

_"You got a different assignment," John said, "Look up the detective that handles this case. His name's Mikhail Vlad; he usually grabs a beer at a bar downtown after work."_

" " "

_Downtown Manhattan_

" " "

_It took Dean more time to find parking than it took to look for Mikhail Vlad. The moment Dean stepped inside the bar, Vlad was so easy to spot there could have been a light shining down on him, bright and glowing especially against the dark of the room._

_"What are you gonna do, Mac?" Vlad sneered at the bartender drunkenly, "Call the cops? I'm the cop 'ere! Gimme a goddamn glass!"_

_The slurred words were picking up volume, and people cautiously stared his way and began to back away. Even the conversations around the room lowered, and a jukebox at one end of the room fell quiet and no one bothered with putting up another song._

_"Come on, Vlad," the bartender implored him, palms out earnestly, "You don't want to do this. You think this is how Ginny would have--"_

_Vlad pulled back his arm in what assuredly would have been a knock-out punch if Dean hadn't stepped in and grabbed it from behind._

_"The hell--!" Vlad exclaimed, whipping around to face him. The quick motion, however, was a little too much for his inebriated, precarious balance. "Whoa," he said, before throwing up. The mess would have been all over Dean's boots if his reflexes were just a millisecond off._

_"Shit!" Dean exclaimed as he stepped back. He didn't release the other man, though, because it was seriously clear that to let him go was tantamount to letting him fall to the ground and all over everything he'd thrown up._

_"I'm sorry, man!" Vlad sobbed as he drunkenly grabbed at Dean. The hunter winced at the smell of his breath, "Oh my god, what a mess. It's all my fault! Everything is my fault! Ginny dead and the puke on the floor and the mess on your clothes--"_

_"You a friend of his?" the bartender asked Dean._

_"Um," Dean hesitated. Did he really want to babysit a drunk detective? Then again, there were harder ways of getting information about a case._

_"Yeah," he lied, grunting as he shifted Vlad to help him walk, "Yeah. I'll bring him home, get him sober."_

_"You wanna pay his bill too? And pay me to fix the mess?" the bartender asked, though it wasn't really a request._

_"Shit," Dean muttered, "How the hell much is it?"_

_"Well he had eight bottles of--"_

_"Put it on his tab," Dean said instead, beginning to make for the door, "I don't have that much on me."_

_He dragged Vlad out the bar, and leaned him against the trunk of the Impala. The detective's knees caved, and he landed on his ass on the floor._

_"This is how," Vlad rambled, "This is how psychos kidnap drunk party girls."_

_"Well at least you're only one of those things," Dean told him easily, as he grabbed at paper towels from the glove compartment and shoved them at Vlad, "You ain't getting into my car like that. You are a mess, dude."_

_"I didn't used to be," Vlad drawled, "It's all Ginny's fault."_

_"A chick, huh?" Dean asked casually, "What did she do?"_

_"She was my partner," Vlad said, beginning to cry miserably again, "We were working on a case together. Straightforward shit. Crazy, but not complicated, you know. We've gone through so much worse. And then she started acting weird, too-focused, too wired, always beating herself up for this or for that, anything, everything. I should have seen it coming. I should have stopped it. I should have seen it coming. It's all my fault."_

_"Seen what coming?" Dean asked._

_"That she'd grab her gun and put it to her face and pull the trigger."_

_Dean stared at him long and hard, "Where did she kill herself?"_

_"What does it matter?" Vlad moaned._

_"Where?" Dean insisted._

_"Her house," Vlad sobbed, "She offed herself in her house."_

_The suicide trend jumped locations, Dean realized. It wasn't the property that was all wrong, then, it was probably something else._

_But what the hell else could it be?_

" " "

_Dean couldn't get anything else from Mikhail Vlad after that. When the detective passed out, Dean grabbed his wallet to check his address, and then stuffed him into the passenger seat of the Impala and drove him home._

_"My fault, my fault..." Vlad kept muttering, which Dean heard perfectly clearly because he mostly carried the weight of the semi-conscious man, arm slung over his shoulder as he searched for the keys to Vlad's duplex._

_"There we go," Dean breathed when he unlocked the door. He shut it behind him and carefully lowered Vlad to a sofa in the living room. He sighed in release of the weight and looked around Vlad's house, recognizing the situation as an opportunity to get some information._

_There were papers everywhere; no photos of kids or a wife or even a dog or his mother, nothing of anything that didn't involve work. He glanced up at Vlad – the man was passed out for real now – before leafing through the papers._

_He found the autopsies of the dead Midtown Manhattan neighbors, and there was no question about the manner of death: Lindy Astley broke everything imaginable when she jumped to her death, the life-partners bled out, and the Marins died of an OD. He found notes made by both Mikhail Vlad and his late partner, Ginny Anderson. He even found Anderson's autopsy report, which stated that she did indeed die from a GSW to the head. Additionally, there was a note that said that though she did not previously fit the psych profile for a suicide, she was handling a multiple-suicide case that could have affected her, especially because she was a single, professional woman on top of her field, just like one of the victims she was investigating._

_"That's a lot of bull," Dean murmured under his breath, "Something's going on here, I just don't know what."_

_He leafed through the papers some more and found financial documents, medical documents, testimonies of friends and co-workers of the deceased. As he scanned through the pages, something fell from the pile and clattered to the floor. _

_Dean glanced at Vlad to see if he heard it and woke up – the man was dead to the world – and then he picked up the small, plastic cassette tape case. He turned it over in his hands, and saw that it was labeled: 'Lindy Astley – phone messages.' The case was empty, but he found the tiny tape itself inside a player that was also on the table. He rewound it a little, and listened:_

_"This is Marcus Conner from Queens, returning Lindy Astley's call," came the grave, low voice, "I'm sorry to tell you Miss Astley, but my wife – Solita Conner, you've been calling her a lot? She can't call you back. She uh... she recently passed away--" His voice broke, and he barely got to say, "I'm sorry I have to go" before he hung up._

_Dean frowned again; this case was getting screwier and screwier. Why was everyone dying around this Astley woman? A person she was calling constantly is dead, so was the detective working her case and her two neighbors._

_He leafed through the papers some more, and another empty plastic case, this time a CD case, almost fell to the floor before he caught it._

_"You, Vlad," Dean said under his breath, "Are a damn messy workaholic."_

_The CD case wasn't labeled, but it had a note on its flap. It was addressed to Linda Astley at the business address of G Clef Productions Inc., and stated: "Ms. Astley, for your serious consideration. I have never heard anything like this before." _

_Dean figured that Astley's work in 'Creative Acquisitions' meant she was a scout of some sort for music talents, so this was probably a sample CD sent to her that she was working on just before she died. What got him searching high and low for the CD that wasn't in the case, though, was who signed at the bottom of the note: "Solita Conner" above a Queens address._

_"The dead wife of phone-message-guy," Dean whispered to himself. He found the CD inside a player that was also on the table. He opened the discman, saw some penned-in notes on the CD itself matching Solita Conner's handwriting, and then he closed it, slipped on the earphones, and pressed 'Play.'_

_Music engulfed his senses right away, and he recognized that feeling he had when listening to something for the first time and yet knowing right off the bat that it was something great. The feeling was just visceral, something inside that was primal and beautifully secret responded to the unearthly sound._

_There was a poet once, who had said that music soothed the savage beast. There was another piece that said it soothed the savage breast. To Dean, sometimes it soothed and sometimes it awakened. What was more alive than a good beat that made you walk a little taller, strut a little more? Or the gritty voice of a southern rockstar that can make the air seem a little bit hotter? Or the guitar solo that can make the atmosphere more kinetic? Or how a single, quiet violin can silence everything around it with a low moan?_

_Good music was creation at its finest – the human mind actualizing an idea that captures another person's, conveying it with the wood of the earth, the hair of an animal, a man's voice..._

_Dean closed his eyes and let the sensation wash over him._

" " "

_"Wake the fuck up!"_

_"Five more minutes, dad..." Dean growled, until he realized that didn't feel quite right... his eyes snapped open and he started, especially at the feel of the unmistakably cold barrel of a gun pressed against the side of his head._

_"Who are you and what are you doing inside my house?" Mikhail Vlad asked him, "Jesus, were you reading through my shit? That's all confidential!"_

_"Relax," Dean told him, raising up his hands in surrender, "Take it easy, buddy."_

_"You're not supposed to read all that!" Vlad said, breathing harshly, "This case is gonna get fucked up, and I'm gonna get the sack--"_

_"Relax," Dean told him again, "I didn't read anything, okay? You don't remember me?"_

_"I'm gonna fucking get the sack--"_

_"Dude!" Dean exclaimed, "You with me here? Do you remember me?"_

_Vlad stepped back cautiously, and looked at Dean carefully, "No."_

_"Well can you smell me?" Dean snapped, "You almost fricking barfed all over me last night! You were a mess! I saw your address in your driver's license, drove you home, stayed around to make sure you don't end up choking on your own vomit, listened to some music and fell asleep, all right? Sheesh, the thanks I get!"_

_"Yeah right!" Vlad exclaimed, "Who'd do that? You came to rob me or something?"_

_"You count the money in your wallet, genius?" Dean asked, "Or wonder why the fuck I'm still here when I could have run away with all your shit while you were passed out?"_

_"But no one would just do this," Vlad insisted._

_"Well I'm not like everyone else," Dean said, "Live with it, all right? Can I go now?" he glanced at his watch; he's been out for over six hours. His father was gonna kill him._

_"No!" Vlad said, "I wanna search you."_

_"Wow," Dean shook his head in amazement, "No faith, man. Seriously, but whatever. I gotta warn you though... I carry a gun, and my permit's in my house, not here. I also carry a hunting knife."_

_"And you're trying to tell me you're an upstanding citizen?" Vlad said as he felt at Dean's pockets._

_"You've got a gun," Dean pointed out as he suffered the search._

_"I'm a fucking cop!"_

_"And I'm new to New York," Dean snapped back, "So sue me."_

_Vlad did find the gun and the knife, left them where they were. He stepped back, and eyed Dean carefully, "You really just helped out some guy you didn't know."_

_"You can pay me if you like," Dean grinned at him silkily, "Or maybe you'd just be nice enough to put the goddamn gun away and let me leave."_

_Vlad hesitated, but put the gun down. He went from pissed and wary to profoundly apologetic, "I'm sorry, man. You know maybe it's just the New Yorker in me, hard to trust people. Or maybe I am an asshole. I puke all over you and pull a gun on you and... wow, I'm just so sorry. I'm a dick."_

_"Don't worry about it," Dean said, "Everyone's going through something, and you just gotta weather it out. And go talk to someone who can help you. I heard there's like tons of shrinks here."_

_"What?"_

_At Vlad's puzzled expression, Dean explained, "Your partner, Ginny. You told me about her last night. I'm sorry."_

_"I should have seen it coming," Vlad said, "I should have known. It's my fault, I should have known."_

_"So..." Dean considered leaving, especially since the late hour guaranteed that his father and Sam were already going nuts by now. But he smelled an opportunity to get more information, so he went for it, "So she was acting really different, huh?"_

_"She's usually so put-together," Vlad said, "Maybe it was that time of the month or something. Or it's because I keep giving her a hard time about being single. It's all my fault."_

_"When did all that start?"_

_"It was just so sudden," Vlad said, "Everything was normal, and then we started working on the suicide cases – you must have heard it from the news, it's all over the place – and a week later she was dead."_

_"You were just working on the cases," Dean said, "Did she do anything differently? Did her style change, did she go someplace weird, did she move houses?"_

_"Everything was the same," Vlad said, "Everything except she was whining a lot, so I made fun of her more. Oh god, this is all my fault."_

_"What was she working on, exactly?"_

_"It was three sub-cases," Vlad said, "I worked on a family of three, and she worked on three people too: a couple and a woman. Now that Ginny's dead, a few days ago I was given everything she was working on to fix so I can turn the entire job over to someone else. They said I'm not fit right now, I'm not in the proper frame of mind. I think they're just trying to get rid of me 'cos I'm not good enough." He paused, and looked at Dean suspiciously, "You a reporter or what?"_

_"Me?" Dean snorted, "No, man. I was just... maybe you just needed to talk about it, or something."_

_"Just," Vlad sighed, "Don't tell anyone, all right? And thanks for your help, but I think I'd rather be alone right now."_

" " "

_Midtown Manhattan_

" " "

_"You shouldn't have made him go down there by himself," Sam told his father darkly._

_"It made perfect sense to send him and you know it," John snapped, "He could drink anyone under the table. Besides, on what universe is meeting up with a drinking cop in a bar more dangerous than what we usually do, for god's sake."_

_"Missing me already?" Dean asked, as he walked into the living room._

_"Where the hell were you?" John asked._

_"And why weren't you answering your phone?" Sam added._

_"Wow, it's the Inquisition," Dean said mock-gravely, "Chill, I have some pretty solid leads. How was meeting up with the neighbors?"_

_"The EMF's weren't responding to anything," Sam reported, "There is no ghostly activity in these apartments that we could detect. Dad and I even chatted the people up – no weird sounds, no sudden drops in temperature, nothing strange or symptomatic of supernatural activity. They're all just ecstatic they got the place at a steal."_

_"I'm not surprised," Dean said, "'Cos the suicides have jumped locations so it's not just localized here."_

_"What do you mean?" John asked._

_"When you looked up the detective handling this case," Dean said, "You came up with Mikhail Vlad, right? But he was working with a partner, a woman who iced herself with her own gun about a week ago. It was why his was the only name we found."_

_"What?" Sam asked._

_"Yup," Dean replied, "Even the first detective working the case killed herself."_

_"What's going on here?" Sam asked, shaking his head in disbelief._

_"That's not all," Dean added, "The cops were investigating everything in these apartments, so they got to Lindy Astley's phone messages. One of them is from a guy named Conner up in Queens, who said that his wife couldn't return Astley's calls because she recently died. Anyone wanna take bets on whether or not that was a suicide too?"_

" " "

_Queens, New York_

" " "

_The next morning, John and Dean posed as police officers making a follow-up on the death of Solita Conner, while they sent Sam – who looked a little young at his post-high school earnestness to be a detective – off to do research on other situations similar to the one they were facing. The two Winchesters sat on a couch across from the grieving widower in his home. They could hear the number 7 train buzz by overhead in a wild mess of violent metallic sounds, cutting off their conversation every few minutes._

_"Why make a follow-up now?" Marcus asked, "It's been weeks since I saw any of you. I thought this was an open and shut case?"_

_"We like to be thorough, Mr. Conner," Dean said, trying to speak over the din of yet another passing train, "We really appreciate your time."_

_"In the days before she died," John asked, "We know your wife was working on something with a lady named Lindy Astley. Do you know anything about that?"_

_"Lindy Astley," Marcus echoed, "Lindy Astley... Oh yeah. I remember. I went through Solita's phone messages a few days after she died, just to see if there were any loose ends I had to take care of. Lindy Astley left like, a gazillion messages for her."_

_"What did they say?" Dean asked._

_"The first messages were okay," Marcus said, "Astley was raving about this music CD that I guess my wife sent her. Astley wanted to have a meeting with her. She left several messages like that, and then as the days wore on, the messages began sounding a little more desperate."_

_"How desperate?" John asked, leaning closer in rapt attention. The man backed off a little bit in unconsciously wary reaction. The move would have been imperceptible to most eyes – including the bullheaded hunter himself - except Dean, who sat next to his father, spotted the move and offset John's intensity by leaning back in the sofa in a relaxed manner, drawing the other man's eyes._

_"Oh just that she thought the music was really good," Marcus said, "And that it would really be helpful to the record label, and that she really felt it would be epic if they could get the music out in the world. She kept saying it would help her contribute more to the label, help her with her work, help her be better. The messages were pretty old by the time I got to them, but she sounded desperate so I called up Lindy, told her Soli's dead."_

_"So your wife was a musician?" Dean asked._

_"No," Marcus replied, "Oh she is-was- god-awful at everything remotely close to music, and I loved her for that."_

_"So where'd the music come from?" Dean asked. He felt his father eying him carefully, wondering why he kept harping on but trusting him enough to let the line run long. The music was the only solid connection between the two suicides after all._

_"I don't know," Marcus replied testily, "There was some kid Soli was working with, I wasn't really listening all that much, all right? I wasn't that involved in her work, I wish I was. I wish... I wish a lot of things. My wife was very... very stable, you know, very balanced. Nothing could jar her, nothing could faze her or get her down. I mean that strength, that stability, that's one of the reasons why she was so good at what she did."_

_"What did she do for a living, exactly?" Dean asked._

_"Soli helped out special kids at a home near here," Marcus replied, "She is-was very good. They all loved her. She had a big, big heart."_

_"And in the days before she took her life?" John asked, and mention of the suicide made the man wince, "She wasn't as put-together, is that what you're saying?"_

_"She was saying things I've never heard her say before," the man answered, "How her parents didn't appreciate her when she was growing up, how she accepted that because she was the least of her siblings, how she wasn't good enough at work, how ugly she was in college, it was just... it was just like she was going deeper and deeper and deeper in this hole and I couldn't pull her back out."_

_He swiped at the tears that started falling from his eyes, "She's never been like that, so I didn't know what to do. I teased her that maybe she's menopausal or something, just to make her smile again. When I said that, she said I was insensitive, started picking a fight. I didn't know what to do..." he started to sob in earnest, "I didn't have the patience, the know-how... god if I just knew then maybe I wouldn't have walked out, and she wouldn't have... wouldn't have..."_

_"I'm sure it's not your fault Mr. Conner," Dean said, "You couldn't have known she would do what she did." Which was to jump in the path of the subway train, but there was no need to go into that much detail at this point, he thought macabrely._

_"What?" Marcus snapped, "Sometimes shit just happens?"_

_Dean wished Sam was here, he could always come up with something much more clever and comforting. Sam's absence left Dean holding the often-necessary sensitivity-basket of the victim-interview that his father hadn't touched in ages._

_"You couldn't have known," Dean said again as he cleared his throat, and left it at that._

" " "

_They picked up Sam from a coffee shop. He was already talking even before both feet were planted inside the backseat of the car._

_"Slow down there, boy genius," Dean told him from the driver's seat, "Breathe first or something."_

_"I found a lot of stuff at the library," Sam said emphatically, "I looked up other instances of suicide clusters."_

_"Yeah?" Dean asked, "What about 'em?"_

_"There's a bunch of theories why the phenomenon happens," Sam shared, "One of the most accepted ones would be the copycat effect if a suicide is overexposed or improperly handled in the media. There's some theory on how psychologically it makes a person feel more relevant, like he's part of a club or something, or it makes him closer to a celebrity who committed suicide by sharing the experience. Sometimes they call it a suicide contagion, the way it spreads. There's lots of other theories, but there is one in particular that caught my eye 'cos it's more up our alley."_

_"Vengeful spirit?" Dean guessed, "A latcher of some kind? Maybe possession...?"_

_"Yeah but we don't see the usual signs of that this time," Sam said gleefully, "I am really good at this research thing."_

_"Douchey self-congratulations later," Dean snapped, "Work now."_

_Sam rolled back his eyes, "So Lindy Astley worked as a Creative Acquisitions Director at G Clef Productions Inc., right? That's what you said a couple days back?"_

_"Yeah...?" Dean said warily, beginning to get a very bad feeling about this, the same ill feeling that had him prompting Marcus Conner about the music of Solita Conner._

_"Ever heard of the 'Suicide Song' urban legend?" Sam asked._

_"The 'Gloomy Sunday' urban legend," John said, "I remember that."_

_"A Hungarian artist composes a song in the 30's," Sam expounded, "And it became a hit in a lot of places and was eventually covered by a good number of people. The most famous one was Billie Holiday in the 40's, but you've got renditions by Sinead O'Connor, Bjork, Sarah McLachlan--"_

_"Did you go to the last Lilith Fair, chick?" Dean sneered at his younger brother. _

_"Whatever, man," Sam continued, "Anyway, supposedly the song inspired so many suicides that a lot of radio stations and clubs put a ban on it. The urban legend is part of the reason why it's so popular. There's tons of movies and songs and novels that hint to it in some way, even an episode of The Simpsons."_

_"Dean, where the hell are we going?" John asked, when he noticed his eldest son driving a little too fast and a whole lot in the wrong direction._

_"I think I know what this is about," Dean said tightly, "And unless I'm making a big mistake, I think we'd better get to Mikhail Vlad fast. I'll explain in a bit, but keep talking, Sammy."_

_"Okay..." Sam hesitated, but did as he was told, "So the number of suicides and the ban is pretty unsubstantiated; that's why it's an urban legend in the first place. But I think something like that is actually going on here because music is the only thing tying Lindy Astley to Solita Conner. I am also thinking that the detective who was investigating the case- Ginny Anderson- might have been a victim of the music too; Dean found the CD with the rest of the material that came from the things she was investigating before she killed herself."_

_"It makes sense," John conceded, "But how does it link to the neighbors?"_

_"That beautiful fucking entertainment system sound-surround," Dean guessed, "Didn't Janet say that sometimes neighbors complained? They probably heard Astley playing it. Shit. Damn it!"_

_"You think Vlad listened to it?" John asked._

_"I know he listened to it," Dean said through grit teeth, "I found it in his discman. Shit! Shit!"_

_Sam's eyes met his father's from the rearview mirror, worriedly._

_"Did you listen to it?" John asked, carefully._

_Dean didn't say anything, just shook his head in dismay. They all knew the answer so he just floored the gas, and hoped they weren't too late to save Mikhail Vlad from killing himself._

" " "

_Downtown Manhattan_

" " "

_"I should have known," Dean growled under his breath as the three Winchesters, along with a good number of other onlookers, watched Mikhail Vlad's body being taken from his apartment in a bag to the coroner's. They arrived in time to find the house already surrounded by emergency personnel._

_"This is all my fault," Dean said, "I should have known something was up."_

_"You couldn't have known," Sam told him quietly, "You couldn't have known, all right?"_

_"I suck at this job," Dean said spitefully._

_John looked at him with a quirked brow, and turned his worried gaze to Sam's. "Let's get out of here, boys. There's a whole lot more to do now."_

" " "

_John took the wheel, and Dean sullenly sank in the passenger seat, watching the city streaming past his window in slow traffic._

_"We gotta break in there and grab that CD from evidence," Dean said quietly, "Make sure no one else listens to it. We gotta check with Conner if his wife sent it to anyone else before she died or if he himself listened to it. We gotta make sure there are no copies left in her house, or anywhere else she might have put it."_

_"We gotta find out where the music is from," John said determinedly, "Find out how to stop that son-of-a-bitch and make sure this never happens again."_

_"We gotta find out how much time we have," Sam said, looking sorrowfully at his older brother._

" " "

_Midtown Manhattan_

" " "

_Retrieving the CD that Mikhail Vlad had in his house was too risky given the fresh case, and anyway John's primary concern was the answer to Sam's question. It was also the easiest to answer._

_"Mikhail Vlad died a week after his partner," Sam said, "Who died a week after the apartment deaths. Solita Conner died several weeks before that. It's not really a pattern, unless we're missing some suicide reports in between that's spaced a week apart each."_

_"It doesn't make sense when you do it just chronologically like that," Dean pointed out, "This isn't a scheduled weekly killing, I don't think. I think they died a number of days after they listened to the music. Vlad died a week after he took over the evidence from his dead partner, which included the CD. Andersen died a week after gathering the evidence, which included the CD. The people in the three apartments died at the same time 'cos they all probably heard the music at the same time. Conner died weeks before anyone else because it might have taken some time before Astley got to listen to the sample CD she sent. It seems like the suicide happens one week after a dumb-ass listens to the music."_

_"So you listened to it last night?" John asked._

_"Yeah," Dean winced._

_"You probably shouldn't have done that," John told him._

_"'Cos I'm supposed to suspect a demonic cursed CD to kill me, right?" Dean sneered, "'Cos every right-thinking hunter who's worth his salt would think about that, right? You probably wouldn't have made that mistake."_

_"I'm just saying you should be more careful next time," John said._

_"If I live past the next week," Dean retorted._

_"Dean, come on," Sam said quietly._

_Dean tossed him a glare, but silenced himself._

_"So what was it like?" Sam asked, "Did you detect any sort of weirdness about the music? Are we supposed to listen to it backwards or something like that?"_

_"It was just..." Dean thought back to sitting in Vlad's house, pressing 'Play' and feeling as if time had no meaning. "It was just someone playing the piano. No voice, no beat, no nothing. Just someone's hands flying on the keys. It was... it felt like a kick in the nuts, it just got to me."_

_John chewed at his lower lip thoughtfully, "So how are you feeling?"_

_"Pissed and stupid," Dean said wryly, "But that sound, dad... it was just... I don't know, it just felt right. Even now, even when I know I'm probably screwed, I just can't regret hearing it."_

_"You boys find out where Solita Conner got the music," John said after a thoughtful moment, "Her husband said she was working with a kid in a home in Queens or something. I'm gonna find out how to stop this thing, get in touch with some contacts."_

_"Maybe Sammy and I can split up," Dean said, "He'd get into the research and I can break that CD out from evidence."_

_"Stick together," John said gruffly, glancing at Sam in the rearview mirror, "Take care of your brother."_

_Dean was looking out the window, couldn't tell that his father was talking about Sam taking care of him instead of the other way around, "You know I always do, dad. You don't have to keep telling me."_

" " "

_They dropped their father off at the Penn Station on 34th Street, which was a major hub for a myriad of train lines like the New Jersey Transit, the New York Subway, the Long Island Rail Road and Amtrak. It stood short and stocky in the middle of the city especially next to Madison Square Garden and a high-rise office building, but most of its bulk was hidden underground. John claimed he was meeting a cop-contact who could break the CD out of evidence, and was meeting with a couple of hunters from upstate who might know a trick or two._

_"I'll see you at the house," John told them when he stepped off the car. Sam took over the driving over Dean's grumbled complaints._

_"How are you gonna get back?" Dean asked his father, always with that streak of worry in his green eyes that made John smirk._

_"I'm not gonna get lost in the big bad city, Dean," John told him, "I'll take the subway."_

_"Be careful," Dean said, before he and Sam drove away. Not a single one of the three Winchesters enjoyed being in big cities; it was crowd and congestion, noise and hard, cold lines of buildings and concrete. It also meant the best-equipped cops and the quickest emergency response times, so they couldn't quite move around as freely or have an easy time of talking their way out of the inevitable scrape._

_"This place is a mess," Dean said, when they stopped at a light and like, a hundred people took to the pedestrian lane in front of them, "Goddamn tourist trap."_

_"It's not so bad," Sam shrugged._

_The brothers drove on._

_"Hey listen, Sammy," Dean said hesitantly. He was shy in his own way, and found himself looking away and scratching at the back of his neck. "This music thing... the people were whiny sons of bitches just before they offed themselves, weren't they?"_

_"Yeah...?"_

_"I'm gonna be saying a shitload of things, aren't I?" Dean asked, "While riding this funk?"_

_Sam looked on at the road thoughtfully. Dean was a hunter through and through and a damn good one, and he was self-aware enough to know that he was not immune to the rules of the supernatural, and not immune from being hurt by them himself._

_"Yes," Sam said._

_"I'm gonna be miserable," Dean continued, thinking of sobbing Mikhail Vlad and all his guilt eating at him, "I'm gonna be self-pitying and depressed and all that shit. I'm gonna be annoying as hell, more than the usual. If... if I live through this, you're not allowed to use all that against me, okay? We're not gonna talk about any of that ever again, okay?"_

_"I'm not allowed to tease you about it?" Sam asked him lightly._

_"No," Dean said with finality, "'Cos it won't be me talking. It's like being possessed or drugged, right?"_

_"Don't worry Dean," Sam sighed, "I won't make fun of you or anything. I won't use it against you when you finally get better."_

" " "

_Dean stood by an entrance of Central Park, across the street from the fancy apartment the Winchesters/LeBecks currently called home, and wondered what Lindy Astley was thinking about when she jumped to her death. _

_The building had a modern facade of sharp white concrete and long, heavily tinted windows. The apartment balconies looked like sporadic decorative accents against the otherwise flat, windowed face. They made the building look like a giant chess board, with the balconies spaced apart in perfect symmetry._

_His eyes trailed up along the building's considerable height, counting 1, 2, 3... all the way up to the 15th floor balcony from which Lindy Astley had jumped. There was another balcony three floors above it, and another one three floors below it. He wondered what she was thinking, standing on the edge and looking down at the world below._

_"Hey," Sam said, coming up beside him. The younger Winchester had bought them sandwiches from a hotdog vendor in the park._

_"It was a long way down," Dean commented._

_"Yeah," Sam agreed._

_"I wouldn't have the balls to go out that way," Dean mused, "I'd think of something easier, something faster, something--"_

_"Don't start thinking about that," Sam told him quickly, grabbing him by the arm, "Come on, Dean. We've got work to do."_

" " "

_Queens, New York_

" " "

_They found out in short order that Solita Conner was especially close to a nine-year-old boy with autism named Chuckie Baer. _

_"He's an orphan," Sam had read aloud from the research they had done before driving to the home, "Only child lost his mom and dad in a suspicious car wreck – the insurance company pretty much refused to pony up anything because it seemed like either mom or dad tampered with the brakes. Two other possible suicides there."_

_"How'd he end up here?" Dean asked as he made a neat turn at the street where the special kids' home was._

_"He was placed in the care of an aunt," Sam went on, "Nice lady by all accounts, but whose husband and two young kids died shortly after the adoption."_

_"Possible suicides too?"_

_"Yeah," Sam winced, "I don't know what it is about this kid. She sensed it too, unloaded him right after."_

_"How the hell is he doing it?" Dean murmured as he pulled over to a park._

_"I don't know," Sam said, "But we gotta... we gotta..."_

_"Ice a kid?" Dean snorted._

_"I dunno, man," Sam admitted, "Chuckie's aunt lives a couple of hours upstate, in Hudson. I'm calling up dad. He's in the station anyway, he may wanna grab a train over there, go interview her."_

_"Let's go see this kid," Dean said. _

_They walked over to the receptionist. Sam had a lie even before Dean opened his mouth: they were visiting uncles from Connecticut, just wanting to speak with Chuckie's case worker to see if the little boy needed anything, because she hasn't been returning their calls._

_"She passed away recently," the receptionist told them with deep regret._

_"Oh no," Sam said, "Soli? Soli died? No wonder she hasn't been calling. How long now? We thought maybe something was going on; Soli usually returned our calls. That's why we had to drop by, see for ourselves what's what. How's Chuckie doing?"_

_The use of the dead woman's name was horrible, but they've always had to do whatever they needed to do. Still, Dean stood next to his wonderfully earnest, shamelessly effective younger brother and marveled at his skills._

_"He's the same as always, Mister...?"_

_"You can call me Mitch," Sam said, flashing her a small smile, "This is my brother Danny. We'd really like to see Chuckie if we could, and if you can link us up with whoever took over his case?"_

_The receptionist led them to one of the many playrooms, and told them to go ahead and say hi to Chuckie while she fetched his new caseworker. Sam's brows furrowed as he looked around the room full of children, but Dean knew which one was Chuckie right away._

_Chuckie Baer had green eyes and a shock of strawberry-blond hair that curled at the ends. His cheeks were pinked out, and he was perfectly beautiful, almost alarmingly enchanting. He sat on his own in a corner, on the carpeted floor right beneath a window that let in the rays of the afternoon light. He looked haloed and perfect, his gaze absent and his head tilted just so, like he was listening to something only he could hear. His fingers tapped against the thick rug; the movement looked random and spasmodic, but Dean recognized the beat. He heard the music in his head, even as he just watched the soundless tapping. _

_"Don't follow," Dean told Sam quietly, fearing what his brother might hear and what even that slight tapping might be capable of doing. He stepped forward, as Sam anxiously waited for the caseworker to arrive._

_Sam watched his brother sit in front of the child, watched Dean study the young boy's perfect face. He didn't know what Dean was looking for; something evil? Something malevolent and wrong? But Dean searched hungrily, his own green eyes deep, boring into the kid like lasers. Chuckie paid him no mind, not until Dean pursed his lips, looked around him as if to make sure no one was within earshot, and then started to hum._

_Sam could not hear them, but he knew that look; the gaze Dean gets, and the way his neck works when he hums to something for whatever random reason. Music tended to calm Dean, hell, it calmed Sam too when Dean hummed to him when they were younger, and possibly even now if they both gave it a shot._

_Chukie stopped the tapping, and looked up at Dean slowly. Sam almost drew out his gun when the kid jumped into Dean and wrapped his small arms around his neck._

_"You're Chukie's uncles, huh?"_

_Sam jumped too, at the voice that came up behind him. It was a middle-aged woman, pleasantly plump and smiling at the scene gently._

_"Chuckie doesn't connect like that to just anybody," she told Sam._

He's killing my brother_, Sam thought, _Connect better than that if you can_._

" " "

_Midtown Manhattan_

" " "

_They met up with their father back at the condo to figure out what to do next. _

_"I've been hunting long enough to get a good feel about what's what," Dean told his father with a wince, "Gimme some credit here."_

_"I'm not questioning your judgment, Dean," John said patiently, and it sounded like reined-in wild horses, "But odds are--."_

_"You tell him, Sam," Dean demanded._

_"I'm with him on this one, dad," Sam implored--_

_"Of course you are," John said mock-gravely._

_"The kid... there wasn't anything _wrong_ with him," Sam insisted, ignoring the commentary, "You know, nothing evil. He's a good kid, dad – it's not his fault he has this... this thing, this ability."_

_John pressed his fingers over his eyes, "Gimme some credit here too, boys, I'm not saying we ice the kid here and now. We just gotta be ready for the possibility--"_

_"No fucking way," Dean said vehemently, "We just gotta find out what's causing this. Maybe someone cursed the kid, maybe there's some evil link manipulating him, maybe he gets possessed, maybe his damn _piano_ is possessed, I don't know. But icing the kid is not an option. Have you lost your damn mind?"_

_John's eyes sparked dangerously in warning over the tone, but he held his patience, especially knowing his eldest son was ailing, "Listen, Dean. You have to be ready to make choices like this because I'm telling you now – things don't have to be evil for them to be dangerous. This is not new to us; think of the kid like he was any other animal we hunt just because they are trying to survive, like werewolves and wendigoes and black dogs. This is not new, you understand me? He doesn't have to be evil to be dangerous. _

_"The damn music..." John went on, "The kid's a savant from what I can figure, right? The music is just... perfection, you know? Like something so damn good it makes you feel so damn small. It's not evil, it's just not for this world. When people who hear it kill themselves... it's almost like even now, the music is trying to end itself, take itself away from this life. No one is supposed to hear it, it's not supposed to be here – and neither is that kid."_

" " "

_The compromise had been to wait until the absolute possible last moment and exhaust all possible avenues before even considering that they had to kill Chuckie Baer._

_Dean had a week, and the Winchesters made efficient use of every single possible second. There were few library resources and diverse sets of supernatural thinkers more expansive than what was available in New York, and the family turned the City upside-down and inside-out in search of a way to stop the suicides._

_Dean started out in the mold of the other victims, whining and ranting about his personal miseries when he was not melancholy and quiet. Painful truths poured from his mouth unchecked, and the recklessness was a perversion of himself and the quiet dignity of everything he's closely held up to this point._

_He was tired of Sam and his father fighting all the time. He was tired of getting caught in between. He was tired of the life on the road and he wanted to settle down and have a family. He was scared of what their future would be. He knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this life would kill them all. And then he would apologize to his father and brother and lie and say he did not mean any of that shit. Sam and John bore it quietly, lied back and said that they knew that; it was just the damn music. Besides, they were just words, weren't they? Just words..._

_But the reality of the fact that their time was running out, and the gravity of the consequences of failure came down on them all one day, when Dean vanished into the bathroom for a few minutes, and then started crying out for Sam's name._

_Sam kicked in the door, blinked at the sight of Dean looking agitated and afraid as he stood in front of the mirror by the sink. Their eyes met and for a moment, Sam could not begin to figure out what was wrong. His gaze drifted down to the once-pristine white sink, specked with blood, and then at his brother's right hand, which was almost rhythmically cutting at his left wrist with his razor._

_"Jesus," he muttered as he stepped forward, pulled apart Dean's hands, and then grabbed two towels and pressed them against his bleeding wrist._

_"Sam..." Dean said, and the younger Winchester could feel him shaking from their proximity as Sam applied pressure on the cut._

_"Here we go," Sam said quietly, calming, "You're all right, Dean."_

_Their father stood by the door of the bathroom as he watched them, looking dark and dangerous and... decided._

" " "

_They put Dean to bed, hid away anything remotely sharp and weapon-like, and then stood next to each other by the wide windows of the beautiful, neat living room and before the panoramic views of the City._

_"Tomorrow's the seventh day," Sam said quietly._

_"We're not gonna find solutions other than what we've always had," John said, "That one from the very beginning."_

_To kill the kid...._

_Sam was going to argue, but he wasn't a fool._

_"I know."_

_"You know what that means," John added._

_Sam nodded, shortly._

_"I'm not..." John hesitated, "I'm not sure if getting the kid out of the equation will do anything for your brother, Sammy. We can't get around a curse like this. But what I do know is that I can't not try it, for Dean. And I do know that it will save people from hearing the music in the future. But I can't ask you to be a part of this."_

_Sam didn't want to be anyway. But if he was going to let his father kill this child, then it was tantamount to doing it himself._

_"I already am, dad," Sam said quietly, because this is what being in this life meant. As his father said days ago, this wasn't supposed to be new to any of them..._

...Things don't have to be evil for them to be dangerous. This is not new to us; think of the kid like he was any other animal we hunt just because they are trying to survive, like werewolves and wendigoes and black dogs. This is not new...

_But the decision and the reality left Sam feeling dirty and wrong. For the same reason that things didn't have to be evil for them to be dangerous, things that were right and real also weren't always good and beautiful. _

" " "

_Day seven dawned, and as if he knew what his father and younger brother had already decided, Dean kind of just... _vanished_ on them. Gone from the building, along with his fancy car. Sam had a sinking feeling about what Dean may have done, and so he called the home where Chuckie Baer lived, and was told that Chuckie was taken out for a day trip by his uncle Danny._

" " "

_New York_

_Late Spring 2001_

**NOW**

" " "

Night had already fallen by the time they found Dean, who had decided to take Chuckie and hide him from his father and brother's intent to kill. But John had his own connections within the NYPD, and it was with their help that he and Sam finally located Dean's hiding place, a storage building under construction downtown.

The kid was nowhere in sight, but Dean shown like a beacon, standing on the business-end of the fourth-floor balcony, the lights of the city below him dancing on his lonely face.

"I couldn't even get hide-and-seek right," he said quietly, hearing his father and brother come up behind him. He turned his head slightly to see them.

"Sure you did," Sam said breathlessly, "When we were kids... you hide, I seek, right? I've always found you."

Dean smiled a little, "I always let you." He sighed heavily, "Just 'cos you're a sore losing bitch to deal with."

"Dean," John said, "Come on over here and let's talk about this."

"You?" Dean sneered, "Talk? Come on."

"This isn't you, son," John said, "Now get over here and calm down."

"This isn't me," Dean echoed quietly, "You don't even... there's just this 'me' in your head that you wished... but I'm not... you know what? Nevermind. This can all be over--"

"Don't talk like that," Sam said quietly, "Dean, you're strong, you can fight this. Now get the hell back from there."

"Four floors down," Dean murmured thoughtfully, "I told you I was a wuss. That chick went down fifteen, imagine that. I wonder what she was thinkin' about."

"Where's the kid, Dean?" John asked, "Where the hell is it?"

"_Chuckie_," Dean said emphatically, "Is safe from you. I'm not gonna let you hurt him, dad. Not for me. Not for this job. It's not his fault, he's really just a kid. You find another way."

"We'll find another way," John promised, "But I need you to be on this side of the damn rail."

"I can't," Dean whispered, turning his face back to fall, "It's so high up here, dad. And I'm sick of being scared. I think I can do this--"

"Dean!" John barked and Dean froze, "You hold that goddamn thought." He turned to his other son, "Sam. Look for that kid."

"Where--"

"Up and down this building," John ordered, "Wherever the hell you need to. Dean hides and you find shit, right? Do it."

"And then what?" Sam retorted, "Kill him?"

"Just find him, Sam."

"But Dean needs me he--"

"He needs us to do our job," John said, "Go."

Sam looked at his brother, whose back was to them now. He held on to the railing behind him, but he was leaning forward, head tilted just so, as if the height was fascinating, and something he wanted to get closer and closer to.

"Dean just hold on," Sam called out, "We'll fix this."

He sprinted away, ran like a maniac because he realized without a shred of doubt that he knew where Dean would be hiding Chuckie. It would be the Impala, because it had always been their safe place. And the car was a hell of a lot easier to find. The car was sitting quietly in a corner on the basement carpark, cloaked in shadows. Sam peered into the windows and found Chuckie asleep in the backseat. Dean's jacket covered half his body like a loose blanket. His face was unlined, incredibly young and incredibly peaceful. He really, _really_ was just a kid.

But Sam... he was only human too. He was only human, and he had a brother he needed to save. He picked at the lock and lifted the kid up into his arms, and then ran back up to where Dean and his father was.

" " "

"Dad, I got him," Sam said breathlessly, laying the kid on the ground. Chuckie started to stir, "What do we do now?"

"Sammy...." Dean said softly, before barking at his father, "You stay right where you are, dad, or I jump. I'm telling you right now don't you fucking come near that kid."

John froze, and his hands curled into helpless fists at his sides. He remained rooted to the halfway point between Dean on the railing, and Sam and Chuckie.

"Get your gun, Sam," John said calmly, "I told you I did not want you to be a part of this, but there are just some choices we gotta make--"

"Old man's lost his mind, Sam," Dean insisted, "This ain't right and we all know it."

"There's no way around this, Sam," John told his youngest son quietly, "You just gotta do it."

Sam could have sworn his entire body was shaking, but the gun that leveled at the back of the oblivious little boy's head was remarkably steady.

"Don't you do it, Sam," his older brother countered, making him look up at Dean, "Not for me, man. Not for me."

_Then _the hand started to shake.

Dean looked and sounded like a mockery of himself, all wide-eyed and teary and just so darn _sorry_. It was jarring to see his face so unmasked. That, and the fact that he was standing on the jumping, business-end of a building balcony, looking like he was damn serious about taking a dive.

"He'll keep the kid alive if you just step off that ledge," John told him, stepping toward Dean.

Dean jerked away as John came closer, and Sam's heart dropped to his stomach when Dean slipped for a breathless moment, regained his footing, and then slammed an even tighter grip against the metal railing behind him.

"Get away from me!" he yelled at his father.

"Okay, okay," John said softly, opening his palms up to placate Dean, "Okay, Dean-o, whatever you want, you got it. Just... let's all just be calm, all right? No one do anything crazy."

Dean laughed at the wind, and tears leaked from his eyes, "Yeah. Sure thing, old man. That's fricking hilarious."

The macabre humor was an echo of his old self, Sam reflected, and he clung to that, that maybe they can still get out of this mess somehow. Besides, Dean's observation was astute 'cos yeah, maybe the situation was a little bit more demented than normal: Dean about to jump off the balcony of a Manhattan high-rise to his death, Sam about to shoot an innocent kid in the head.

"We're so high up," Dean said softly, "I'm so fucking scared. I'm so sick of being scared. It can be over real quick. All I gotta do, is just..."

Sam watched the fingers of Dean's hand loosen from the railing, one by one by one by one. There were ten of them, and they looked like a countdown in his head. Pinkie, and the the ring finger, and then the middle finger Dean liked the best, and then the index--

Sam's finger tightened on the trigger the same moment Dean's loosened from the rail.

Chuckie Maynard dropped, lifeless to the ground.

Dean looked up at Sam, stricken.

Sam had hoped the curse would end with the death of the kid.

"Why'd you do that?" Dean whispered, just before he let go.

"Dean!" John yelled, jumping forward in a useless, desperate grab that caught nothing but air. Sam was already on his feet, running for the stairs before Dean hit the ground. His feet pounded on the steps, echoing his heart in a mad thud. He burst out of the stairwell on the ground floor, straight toward Dean's body, writhing on the floor and his head looked like the epicenter of a growing, rippled puddle of blood.

"Ohgodohgodohgodohgod..." Sam said under his breath, as his brother's body jerked spasmodically. Sam tore off his over-shirt, the sleeves getting stuck on his long arms as he trembled in panic. He set himself free, and pressed the cloth against his brother's wound. He watched Dean's legs stiffen, then tremble and shake violently as his body arched up from the ground and seized.

"Jesus," he heard his father mutter from behind him, "We g-gotta get him outta here, get him to some help."

"Have you lost your mind?!" Sam retorted, already fishing for his cellphone with the one hand he was not using to stem the bleeding.

"There's a dead kid up there, Sam," John said, "Shot in the fucking head. There will be cops crawling around all over and they might look at where he jumped from."

There was no way Sam would allow his older brother to be moved from there save by a professional. John Winchester's eyes were clouded – unbearable worry and also that inalienable fear of the law. They argued for a second before Sam decided to drop the bomb: "Goddamnit, dad. Look at him, for crying out loud. He dies here, like this, and you'll have mom to answer to."

His father looked stricken, "You have no right to say that."

But he said nothing else as Sam called 911.

" " "

"That kid..." Sam said to his father quietly as they sat in wait for word on dean's surgery, "I killed him for nothing. It didn't work. Dean still--"

"We knew that was a possibility," John said, "We knew killing him might not have an effect on Dean after he heard the music. It's just how curses go."

"So what," Sam asked, "If Dean comes out of this, he'll still be... be suicidal like that?"

"I don't know," John admitted.

"What do you _think_?" Sam pressed.

"I don't know," John replied stubbornly, "But what I do know, is that we can deal with that somehow. And with the kid dead... no one else will be harmed after... after Dean."

"I killed a kid," Sam said after a long moment, "I killed an innocent kid."

"I know Sam," John told him, "And it ain't easy. But this job... someone's gotta do it. You saved lives by what you did, you gotta know that."

And the truth was that he understood that. His father was right; things did not have to be evil for them to be dangerous. But similarly, what was right was not always beautiful, and their life... steeped as it may be with good intentions and honest work and sacrifice and all that _shit_... was a steaming pile of crap.

_Gimme delusion any time_, Sam thought. That delusion where the evil are the ones that are punished and the innocent can be saved, where the truth can bring about justice and fairness and balance. Where righteousness is just plainly right, no more shades of gray, no more blood of innocent kids on his hands and the understanding that it was somehow the _better_ thing to do.

" " "

The doctors said that the likelihood that Dean would ever be the same again was poor.

Sam found the phrasing ironic because days later, Dean would wake up calling for his brother, not remembering anything of how he got there. Sam patiently explained the situation and mistakenly thought that things were finally getting better. Except... Dean would wake up every morning after asking the exact same thing in the exact same way. For _weeks_.

He supposed in some sense it was a good thing; Dean's recent memories were shot to hell, including all recollection of Chuckie Baer and the music that had made him want to kill himself. If Dean ever came back to normal without the memory of that music... then he had a very real chance of not returning to that suicidal mode that John and Sam had feared.

Still, as the days wore on... it was harder and harder to see anything else that was good about the situation other than Dean being alive and Dean not-being-suicidal.

Sam was... frayed to the core. Sharp focus had turned to weary, worn corners. Every damn morning, saying the same damn things. He blamed their lifestyle and so consequently he blamed their father, at the start. But then weeks of that and he couldn't even bring himself to be angry about the situation anymore because it was too tiring. It was like harsh wind and sand grinding down stone over centuries in the same, plain and tired, over-bright desert scene. It was a far more dangerous frame of mind, he reflected, this numbness. Anger had a fighting chance against despair. It was how his father survived their mother's murder, after all. But lately he was just... tired.

"Things aren't going to change with Dean for awhile," his father muttered weeks after Dean's fall, and Sam reflected that the old man didn't even have the grace to pretend he was ashamed about leaving, "And this thing is killing kids up in--"

_No more arguments_, Sam decided. "We need you here," he said, plainly, without fire, "Dean needs us. If you're gonna go..."

"I have to go..."

"You never _have_ to do anything," Sam said, "We need you here, dad. And I'm telling you, right now: if you go out that door, don't you even think about coming back."

He said it in the most plainly truthful way, matter-of-fact, like saying the sky was blue. John left nevertheless, saying, "You can't mean that. I'll be back in a couple of days. And Sam--"

"I know, I know," Sam said wearily, "Don't mention anything about this last case. We don't want him to remember the music or anything related to it."

Sam wept when he was left alone with Dean. He wept because he missed his brother. He wept because he needed his father. He wept because he meant very monumentally alone: he had shot an innocent kid, and the only person who could comfort him about it – his older brother – had a memory with holes in it that he wasn't supposed to fill.

And then he wept too because he hated this thankless life that they lived. And he wept because if his dad left, _he_ couldn't.

A week before Dean got hurt, back in that diner in New Jersey, he was told that the acceptance letter from Stanford came into his friend's address. A few hours before Dean got hurt, while he was busy searching for his brother, the same friend left him voice mail saying another letter came in from the school, this time informing him of his scholarship grant.

He hasn't broken the news to either his brother or his father, couldn't find the words to. Couldn't find the strength to... or maybe it was the other way around. He'd been trying to be strong, tried to keep it to himself. He only tried for college just because he knew he deserved a shot; hunting life was necessary and not all bad, after all. He never really thought he could just... _go_. But this last case... it just wore him down, showed him truths in the harshest, most unflattering light: this life was killing _them_, and he could get out, if he wanted. Now he lost the strength to hang on. _Now _he found the weakness to let the words go.

"Please get better," he begged of Dean, gripping his brother's forearm with one hand and clutching desperately at his sleeve with the other. He rested his head on Dean's shoulder, "Please, Dean. I need to know you're okay. I gotta leave. I'm dying, here. But I won't leave, not until you're okay."

Dean heard him – Dean almost always heard him – and blinked awake, turned his head toward Sam's. Dean didn't ask where he was, or what happened to bring him here.

"I got accepted to Stanford," Sam told him, warily, not sure what was going on with his brother, "But I won't go, not until you're better, okay? I won't go until you're better. I'll take care of you. Would you please remember this tomorrow?"

Dean nodded carefully, before going back to sleep.

" " "

Dean did as he promised, and Sam was unsurprised. Dean always did as he promised.

Their father returned days later, just as he promised, stunning Sam into letting him back in to their lives.

Sam left them weeks later, as _he _promised.

_You walk out that door..._ his father had threatened.

But he did. Bag slung over shoulder, he left them. Dean's stricken look behind him, he left them. He left them. He left them because he was angry and determined. But he left them because it had to have been a lie...

_Don't you ever come back_?

It had to have been a lie.

_The End_

_January 5, 2010_

" " "

**Afterword**

" " "

**The Original Version of **_**Crossing**_

_Crossing_ was originally supposed to be several long fics, particularly Chapter 2: _Dean Man Walking_ and Chapter 3: _The Line_. The similarity in theme, though – What could have been that last hunt that finally pushed Sam to leave for Stanford? – got me deciding to put all of them under one banner. I added Chapter 1: _Departures_ to make the story into a quasi-trilogy, just to give it a sense of balance; 3 is a pretty good number, haha. Also, for those who have read my work before, Chapter 3: _The Line _is the extended version of Part 2 of _The Bough Breaks _:)

**The Structure of **_**Crossing**_

Note though, that aside from the common theme, there is also an underlying structure that unites all three: the first fic _Departures_ is about Sam realizing what John was willing to do and what he was willing to lose for the hunt – sacrificing a son. _Dean Man Walking_ was about what Dean was willing to do and what he was willing to lose for the hunt – killing a man. _The Line_ was Sam's turn – killing a child. The message of the three fics is really just Sam seeing all the angles that their job could be very profoundly ugly and unseating, no matter how good their intentions are.

**The Characterizations of **_**Crossing**_

I think from cannon it's well-established that no one takes it further than a Winchester to get an objective done, haha, so in _Crossing_ we have all three of them willing to do something drastic for one reason or another. What I wanted to do most here though, was to focus on a particular depiction of Sam. I didn't want him to just be a whiny teenager who simply wanted to get out; he was good at his job and he was always willing to do what he saw was right. But bad events happening to his family that heightened the difficulties of their situation, coupled with the possibility of an exit, ultimately resulted in him leaving.

**Thanks and Acknowledgments**

I would like to thank all who read, alerted, favorite-d and especially all who reviewed and consequently encouraged me to continue this fic. It took me awhile and I haven't had a chance to comprehensively respond to queries, for which I apologize, but I've been out of the country again over the last month and I'm only getting back into the fandom just now. But I am working very hard to get my affairs in order, beginning with the conclusion of _Crossing_, and following it up with a big, hearty shout out to:

AmyNY, Anne1013, annie200, Aranna Undomiel, asdfjkl;, badaiwind, cursedgirl, Death-Muncher, enid18, greeneyedelf001, Kritty, Mandy, masondixon, Maz101, Nong Pradu, Ophium, sunnyjunedays, Twinchy and zuimar.

Thanks so much guys, and I hope that this third installment offers you as much enjoyment :)

**Next Project/s: **_**Ever This Day **_**and **_**Lightning and Thunder**_

I am actively working on several at the same time (which is probably why it takes me awhile to finish anything, haha) but right now, I am most involved in another one of these 'three-one-shot' series like _Crosssing _above:

Title: **Ever This Day**

Summary: "We have been through much together, you and I," Castiel had said. This is Dean through the eyes of his overburdened, self-appointed guardian angel, set in _OTHAP, The End, _and_ Abandon All Hope_.

And another fic, which will be a long adventure-type endeavor:

Title: **Lightning and Thunder**

Summary: When Sam gets that call he's always dreaded while being away from his family in Stanford – your brother is missing and he could be dead – he had no idea he would find Dean in the middle of a case, somehow trapped in the final weeks of World War II.

Anyway, C&C's welcome as always and 'til the next post!


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